A paved town square with benches, lamps, trees and a fountain, a cream church with two towers behind and bare brown mountains beyond

Lima & the Central Coast, Peru

Nazca

The Plaza de Armas of Nazca, with its church and the desert mountains behind. (Pavel Špindler / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0)

The capital of Nazca Province in the Ica Region, a desert town in a valley of Peru's southern coast that takes its name from the Nazca culture of 100 BC to AD 800. Rebuilt after the 1996 earthquake, it lives from farming, gold mining and above all the visitors who fly from its small airport over the Nazca Lines.

Neighbourhoods

  • Plaza de Armas and Jirón Bolognesi
    • First-time visitors
    • Best for food
    • Close to public transport

    The main square with its church, and the streets around it where most of the town's hostels, restaurants and tour agencies are. Jirón Bolognesi leads east from the centre and is the main street for visitors.

    Open in Maps
  • Avenida de la Cultura
    • Museums
    • Quiet and residential

    The quieter eastern side of town, about a kilometre from the centre along Jirón Bolognesi, home to the Antonini archaeological museum.

    Open in Maps

Things to do

The Nazca Lines

  • Nazca Lineslandmark

    Geoglyphs scraped into the desert floor between 500 BC and AD 500, with a combined length of more than 1,300 km, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994; the figures are best seen from the air but are also visible from the foothills.

    Open in Maps
  • Maria Reiche Neuman Airporttransit hub

    The town's small airport, named after the researcher who did much to study and protect the lines, used mainly for tourist flights over them in light aircraft.

    Open in Maps
  • Observation towerviewpoint

    A viewing tower beside the Pan-American Highway outside the town, with a view of three of the figures from the ground; buses heading north from Nazca pass it.

    Open in Maps

Museums and ancient sites

  • Museo Arqueológico Antoninimuseum

    A museum on the archaeology of the surrounding sites, with fine Nazca ceramics and textiles from Cahuachi, and a working aqueduct and a scale model of the lines in its garden.

    Open in Maps
  • Cantalloc Aqueductslandmark

    More than 40 underground aqueducts built by the Nazca culture about 1,500 years ago, about 4 km from the centre, with spiral stone openings that gave access for cleaning and repairs.

    Open in Maps
  • Chauchilla Cemeterylandmark

    A Nazca-culture cemetery south of town, used from about AD 200 to the 9th century and discovered in the 1920s; plundered by grave robbers, it still holds mummified remains.

    Open in Maps
  • Cahuachilandmark

    A major ceremonial centre of the Nazca culture, with more than 40 adobe-topped mounds, now thought to have been a pilgrimage centre rather than a capital.

    Open in Maps

Eat and drink

Long-standing places and food districts in Nazca. Hours, ratings and directions come from your maps app, always current.

Nazca classics

  • Restaurants around the Plaza de Armasneighborhood

    The centre's restaurants serve the food of the south coast — seafood, criollo dishes and set lunches — to travellers and local families.

    Open in Maps
  • Restaurants on Jirón Bolognesineighborhood

    The main visitors' street east of the plaza, lined with places to eat beside the hostels and tour agencies.

    Open in Maps

Experience Nazca

History

The valleys around Nazca were the home of the Nazca culture, which flourished between about 100 BC and AD 800 and was responsible for the Nazca Lines and the ceremonial centre of Cahuachi. In one of the driest deserts on earth, the Nazca built underground aqueducts, the puquios, that tapped groundwater through filtration galleries; the regional system still functions today and kept the valley's fields of cotton, beans and potatoes alive. They buried their dead at Chauchilla, south of the town, from about AD 200.

The Spanish town has two founding stories. According to the chroniclers it was founded on 28 October 1548 by Alonso de Mendoza on the orders of Pedro de la Gasca; another version says it was founded in 1591 by the viceroy García Hurtado de Mendoza. For centuries it was a modest farming town on the coastal road.

The 20th century brought the lines to the world's attention. The researcher Maria Reiche devoted her life to studying and protecting them, and UNESCO declared the Nazca Lines a World Heritage Site in 1994. On 12 November 1996 an earthquake of magnitude 7.5 almost completely destroyed the city and its surroundings, and since 1997 Nazca has been the site of a major Canadian gold mining operation. Research continues: in 2024 a team from Yamagata University working with IBM used artificial intelligence to find 303 previously unknown geoglyphs, and in 2025 the Ministry of Culture ordered a 42 per cent reduction in the area of the lines' reserve, a decision it reversed shortly afterwards.

Culture & Customs

Nazca's identity rests on its ancient past. The lines — straight tracks running across the desert and figures of animals and plants such as the hummingbird, the monkey and the spider — have made the town's name known around the world, and the theories about their purpose, from astronomy to water and walking rituals, are a constant topic among guides and visitors. The town's airport is named after Maria Reiche, and her work is honoured throughout Nazca.

Nazca ceramics and textiles, among the most colourful of ancient Peru, are on show at the Antonini museum, and the aqueducts at Cantalloc remain part of a working water system rather than a ruin. The protection of the pampa is a matter of local and national pride: an errant truck driver was arrested there in January 2018, though later released, and after a Greenpeace action damaged the area one of the activists was convicted and fined.

Daily Life

Nazca is the largest town of its province and its capital, a market and service centre for the farms of the valleys and for the mining around it. Since 1997 a major Canadian gold mining operation has brought work. The aqueducts still water the fields, and the valley grows cotton and other crops in the desert.

Tourism is the other pillar. Light aircraft take off from the small airport for flights over the lines, tour agencies and hostels fill the streets around the plaza and Jirón Bolognesi, and long-distance coaches between Lima and the south stop at the town, bringing a steady flow of travellers who often stay only a night or two.

The town rebuilt after the 1996 earthquake, which almost completely destroyed it. Water remains the central concern in such a dry valley, alongside the pressures that mining, roads and vehicles put on the fragile pampa, where geoglyphs have been damaged outside the protected area.

Food

The food of Nazca is that of Peru's southern desert coast. Restaurants around the plaza and along Jirón Bolognesi serve set lunches, the menú, with a soup and a main course, and the coast's classics: ceviche, raw fish cured in lime juice with onion and chilli; causa, chilled layers of seasoned yellow potato; and lomo saltado, a beef stir-fry from the Chinese-Peruvian chifa kitchen.

The valley's farms supply maize, beans and fruit, and the region shares Ica's grape and pisco tradition: the clear grape brandy is distilled in the bodegas of the south coast, and the pisco sour is the classic drink. Ica's tejas, sweets filled with manjar blanco and coated in sugar or chocolate, are sold throughout the region.

Among the everyday drinks are chicha morada, made from purple corn, and Inca Kola, the bright yellow soft drink that outsells Coca-Cola in Peru. Anticuchos, grilled skewers of beef heart, are an everyday favourite across the country, and coca tea is on offer for travellers heading on to the Andes.

Planning tools

Budget

Nazca is cheap for rooms and food. The overflight of the lines is by far the biggest cost, and longer flights that add Cantalloc, Chauchilla or the Palpa lines cost more. Tours by car to the cemetery and aqueducts are modest extras.

Daily Budget Midrange
USD 90–190 (mid-range hotel, restaurant meals, an overflight and a tour to Chauchilla)
Daily Budget Shoestring
USD 30–50 (hostel bed, set lunches, observation tower, local buses)

Book flights through an established operator or at the airport rather than with touts in the street or at the bus station.

Best Time to Visit

Nazca can be visited all year. The desert is sunny and dry nearly all the time, with very little rain, and December to March is the high season for flights. The calm, stable climate that has preserved the lines also makes flights possible in most months.

Suggested Number of Days

Most visitors spend one or two days in Nazca, often breaking a journey along the south coast. Two days leave time for the sites outside town and a margin in case a flight is delayed.

First Visit
1–2 days
With Surroundings
2 days

Transportation

The centre is small and walkable. Taxis and agency cars reach the airport, the aqueducts and the cemetery, and buses running north on the Pan-American Highway pass the observation tower.

Ignore touts at the bus station who claim to work for a hotel or offer cheap flights, and arrange a pick-up through the hotel instead.

Airport & Station Connections

Coaches run down the Pan-American Highway from Lima in about seven hours, passing Paracas and Ica, and continue south towards Arequipa. The town's small airport receives only a few domestic charter flights and is used mainly for the overflights; most visitors arrive by bus.

Walkability

The town centre is compact, with the plaza, Jirón Bolognesi and the museum within easy walking distance. The lines, the cemetery and the viewing tower are out in the desert and need transport.

Safety

The standard tourist circuit — Lima's Miraflores and Barranco, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Arequipa, Puno — is generally safe with urban precautions, but crime has risen. Nazca overflights are made in small light aircraft, and the choice of operator matters. Touts at the bus station sell flights and rooms for agencies and hotels that may be unreliable. The area is seismic: the 1996 earthquake almost completely destroyed the town.

Fly with an established Nazca operator, buy flights at the airport or through a trusted hotel, and carry water and sun protection in the desert. Check current official travel advice before travelling.

Climate

A hot, dry desert climate, one of the driest on the planet, with sunny days through most of the year. The dry, windless, stable conditions are what have preserved the lines for two thousand years.

Summer
December–March, sunny and dry, and the high season for flights; the pampa of the lines averages about 25°C over the year
Winter
June–September, sunny and dry; the town itself averages about 20°C over the year

Local Customs

The lines and the ancient sites are protected archaeological heritage, and damage to the geoglyphs has led to arrests and convictions. The cemetery holds human remains and should be visited with respect.

Tipping is not practised in taxis. Never step or drive onto the pampa, and keep to the paths at Chauchilla and Cantalloc.

Common Payment Methods

The currency is the sol (PEN). Hotels and flight operators may accept cards, sometimes with a surcharge, but cash is needed for the observation tower, taxis, small restaurants and markets. ATMs are in the centre, and most charge fees.