What makes Plaza Mayor & Historic Centre historically important?
Lima's Plaza Mayor — also called the Plaza de Armas — is the exact spot where the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded the City of Kings in January 1535. Nearly five centuries later, it remains the political and ceremonial centre of Peru, flanked by the Government Palace (where the daily changing of the guard draws crowds at noon), the Cathedral of Lima (which houses Pizarro's own remains in a side chapel), the Archbishop's Palace with its magnificent carved cedar balconies, and the Municipality of Lima. The bronze fountain at the centre dates to 1651, making it one of the oldest surviving public monuments in the Americas. The surrounding Historic Centre radiates outward from the plaza through a grid of streets lined with baroque and neoclassical buildings whose ornate wooden balconies — enclosed, latticed, and often cantilevered over the sidewalk — are a defining feature of Lima's colonial architecture. The Convento de San Francisco and its bone-stacked catacombs sit two blocks away, while the Jirón de la Unión pedestrian street connects the plaza to the Plaza San Martín in a corridor of shops, cafés, and street performers. A knowledgeable guide transforms this from a pleasant walk into a vivid narrative of conquest, viceregal wealth, earthquakes, and the independence movement that ended Spanish rule in 1821.