28 July 2010

LIMA – PERU

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.
Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico civilization, one of the oldest in the world, and to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty, which included most of its South American colonies. After achieving independence in 1821, Peru has undergone periods of political unrest and fiscal crisis as well as periods of stability and economic upswing.
Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. Its geography varies from the arid plains of the Pacific coast to the peaks of the Andes mountains and the tropical forests of the Amazon Basin. It is a country with a high Human Development Index score and a poverty level around 34%. Its main economic activities include agriculture, fishing, mining, and manufacturing (e.g. textiles).
The Peruvian population, estimated at 29 million, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Europeans, Africans, and Asians. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechua or other native languages. This mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine, literature, and music.
Lima is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima Metropolitan Area. With a population fast approaching 9 million, Lima is the fifth largest city in Latin America, behind Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. Lima has been defined as a beta world city.
Lima was founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro on January 18, 1535, as La Ciudad de los Reyes, or “The City of Kings.” It became the capital and most important city in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru. Following the Peruvian War of Independence, it became the capital of the Republic of Peru. Today, around one-third of the Peruvian population lives in the metropolitan area.
The city slopes gently from the shores of the Pacific Ocean into valleys and mountain slopes located as high as 500 metres (1,600 ft) above mean sea level. Within the city exist isolated hills which are not connected to the surrounding hill chains, such as El Agustino, San Cosme, El Pino, La Milla, Muleria and Pro hills. The San Cristobal hill in the Rimac district, which faces directly north of the downtown area, is the local extreme of an Andean hill outgrowth.
Metropolitan Lima has an area of 2,672.28 km2 (1,031.77 sq miles), of which 825.88 km2 (318.87 sq miles) (31%) comprise the actual city and 1,846.40 km2 (712.90 sq miles) (69%) the city outskirts. The urban area extends around 60 km (37 miles) from north to south and around 30 km (19 miles) from west to east. The city centre is located 15 km (9.3 miles) inland at the shore of the Rimac river, a vital resource for the city, since it carries what will become drinking water for its inhabitants and fuels the hydroelectric dams that provide electricity to the area. While no official administrative definition for the city exists, it is usually considered to be composed of the central 30 out of the 43 districts of Lima Province, corresponding to an urban area centred around the historic Cercado de Lima district. The city is the core of the Lima Metropolitan Area, one of the ten largest metropolitan areas in the Americas. Lima is the second largest city in the world located in a desert, after Cairo, Egypt.
Lima’s climate is quite mild, despite being located in the tropics and in a desert. Lima has a subtropical and desert climate, yet the microclimate also makes the atmosphere very humid throughout the year. Despite featuring a desert climate, temperatures vary from mild to warm. It’s neither cold nor very hot, which is very unusual for a desert climate. The average daily temperatures in winter range from 12 °C (54 °F) to 19 °C (66 °F). Winter days usually come accompanied by continuous overcast skies, fog, and mist, but Lima sees little significant rainfall from this. In the summer, the daily maximum temperature averages around 29 °C (84 °F) with a daily minimum temperature around 19 °C (66 °F). During El Nino events, the climate of Lima gets severely disrupted, the water temperatures along the coast which usually average around 17–19 °C (63–66 °F) get much warmer (as in 1998 when the water temperature reached 26 °C (79 °F)), which causes the high and low temperatures to rise by several degrees. Such was the case when Lima hit its all-time record high of 34 °C (93 °F).
Relative humidity is always very high particularly in the mornings, and produces brief morning fog from June to December and persistent low clouds from May to November. Sunny, less humid, and warm summers last from December to April and are followed by cloudy, humid, and mild winters (lasting from June to October). The all-time record low in the metropolitan area is 9 °C (48 °F). Lima has only 1284 hours of sunshine a year, 28.6 hours in July and 179.1 hours in January, exceptionally low values for the latitude.
Rainfall is very low. The severely low rainfall impacts on water supply in the city. Inland locations receive anywhere between 1 to 6 cm (2.4 in) of rainfall, which accumulates mainly during the winter months. Summer rain occurs in the form of isolated light and brief afternoon or evening events, leftover from afternoon storms that generate over the Andes. The peak of the ‘rainy season,’ which does not produce “rain” in the true sense of the word, occurs during winter when late-night/morning drizzle events (locally called ‘garua’,'llovizna’ or ‘camanchacas’) become frequent, leaving a light coating of dampness on the ground. All these climatic phenomena arise from the combination of semi-permanent coastal upwelling and the presence of the cold Humboldt Current just offshore.

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