
Lima is the capital of Peru and its biggest city. Perhaps the best clue to the significance of Lima to the country of Peru can be found in its most popular nickname: El Pulpo (“The Octopus”). Metropolitan Lima’s huge size—it accounts for about one-fourth of the total population of Peru—has both resulted from and stimulated the concentration of people, capital, political influence, and social innovations. Lima’s unique status is but one of the more important consequences of a highly centralized, unitary state that from its inception in the early 19th century solved interregional conflicts by focusing power and prestige on the city. With its port of Callao and its location at the centre of Peru’s Pacific coast, Lima was long the only point of contact between the country and the outside world.