Huaraz

Huaraz, the capital city of the province of the same name in the highland department of Ancash, Peru has an estimated population of 90,000 (2007). Created by decree on 25 July 1857, the department is bounded on the north by the province of Huaylas, on the south by Cajatambo province, on the east by Pomabamba and Huari provinces at the top of the Cordillera Nevada mountain range, and on the west by Santa province. Its origins can be traced back to a community of Indians that was given in encomienda to Sebastián de Torres. During the next two centuries, the town became an increasingly important economic and religious center. In 1788 its citizens were granted the right to elect a municipal council (cabildo), and the settlement was officially given the title of villa.

During the next century, military leaders such as Simón Bolívar and Agustín Gamarra used Huaraz as a base, as much for its rich agricultural hinterland, which produced wheat, barley, potatoes, corn, and cotton for cloth, as for its strategic position vis à vis Lima to its southwest. In the twentieth century, Huaraz was the scene of an Aprist uprising against the government of Luis Sánchez Cerro in 1932. In 1970 Huaraz was 90 percent destroyed as a result of an earthquake that was labeled the worst natural disaster recorded in the Western Hemisphere.

See alsoEarthquakes .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mariano Felipe Paz Soldán, Diccionario geográfico estadistico del Perú (1877).

Ruben Vargas Ugarte, Historia general del Perú, 10 vols. (1971).

David P. Werlich, Peru: A Short History (1978).

Additional Bibliography

Alba Herrera, C. Augusto. La revolución aprista de 1932: Huaraz-Ancash. Lima: Ediciones de Desarrollo Gerencial, 2006.

                                       Susan E. RamÍrez