With its 9 million citizens, Lima is the biggest and capital city of Peru. It was already the
capital of the Spanish Empire in South America in 1535 and up until 1950 the city
maintained an elitist and aristocratic character. The city was the political and
administrative core of South America. The neighbour city Callao was the most important
port of the Pacific Ocean and so Lima became a more valuable city.
More than 40% of the urban growth was concentrated in Lima in the time span 1983-
1993 where the percentage of people living in urban cities was 73%.