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Trujillo is the capital of La Libertad on the north coast of Peru, set near the mouth of the Moche River, and the third largest city in Peru. Founded in 1534 by Diego de Almagro and named after the Spanish home town of Francisco Pizarro, it grew up among the ruins of the Moche and Chimú cultures, whose capital Chan Chan is the largest adobe city of the ancient Americas.
Known as the City of Everlasting Spring for its mild, sunny weather, Trujillo is also the capital of the marinera dance and a centre of Peruvian Paso horse breeding. It proclaimed its independence from Spain on 29 December 1820, and in 1824 Bolívar made it the provisional capital of Peru. Its historic centre, ringed by Avenida España along the line of the old city wall, keeps colonial mansions with wrought-iron window grilles.
Visits split between the Moche Route south of the city, with the Temples of the Sun and Moon, and the Chimú sites around Chan Chan to the north, ending at Huanchaco beach, where fishermen still ride reed boats. Local food includes ceviche, shambar soup on Mondays and sweet alfajores.
Capital of the Chimú kingdom from about 900 until the Inca conquest around 1470, Chan Chan spread over 20 square kilometres five kilometres west of central Trujillo. Its walled palace compounds have adobe walls carved with reliefs, and it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.
Built by the Moche between the 1st and 9th centuries about 4 kilometres from Trujillo, this temple was enlarged by raising a new platform over the old one roughly every hundred years. Its largest platform stands 30 metres high, and high-status burials and signs of human sacrifice were found here.
Made of more than 130 million adobe bricks, this Moche pyramid was the largest pre-Columbian adobe structure in the Americas, about 50 metres tall at first. In the 17th century Spanish colonists turned the Moche River against its base to loot gold, and about two thirds of it has since been lost.
Also called Huaca Arco Iris, this Chimú temple in La Esperanza district near Chan Chan dates from around the 11th century. A tall outer wall encloses a double stepped platform reached by ramps, its adobe friezes show figures under an arching rainbow, and 14 storerooms line the upper level.
The oldest public space in the city marks the site of its founding in 1534, and on 29 December 1820 the independence of Trujillo was proclaimed here. At its centre stands the Freedom Monument by the German sculptor Edmund Möller, opened in 1929, with the cathedral and old mansions around the square.
Built between 1647 and 1666 after earthquakes destroyed earlier churches, the cathedral on the Plaza de Armas has Rococo and Baroque altarpieces and canvases of the Cusco school. Its free-standing gilded main altarpiece is one of only two left in Peru, and its painted vault earned it its nickname.
Also called Casa Calonge, this neoclassical mansion with a wooden doorway, Doric columns and wrought-iron window grilles was rebuilt in the 19th century. Simon Bolívar stayed here during his campaign, and it now belongs to the Central Reserve Bank, with Chimú ornaments and period furniture on show.
From this house on the corner of Pizarro and Gamarra streets, the Marquis of Torre Tagle led the movement that proclaimed Trujillo's independence in 1820. It later housed the first constituent congress and the government of President Riva Agüero, and today it holds art shows in its courtyard.
This seaside resort on the coast north-west of central Trujillo was the port of Chan Chan in Chimú times and the main port of Trujillo until 1870. In 2012 it became the first place in Latin America approved as a World Surfing Reserve, and it is also known across Peru for its ceviche.
Fishermen at Huanchaco still ride these slim reed boats out through the surf, straddling them like little horses, a craft used in Peru for some 3,000 years. The totora reed is cut in the Huanchaco swamps, and since 2016 the boats have been part of the National Cultural Heritage of Peru.
About 60 kilometres north of Trujillo in the Chicama Valley, this complex was occupied from preceramic times. Its largest pyramid, Huaca Cao Viejo, built by the Moche, is known for polychrome reliefs and murals and for the tomb of the Lady of Cao, the earliest known female ruler in Peru.
This lagoon of about nine hectares lies by Conache village in Laredo district, near Trujillo, among big dunes used for sandboarding. Once seasonal, it has held water all year since the Chavimochic irrigation project raised the water table, and carob woods full of egrets and wild ducks surround it.
Opened on 24 June 2010 at the foot of the Huaca de la Luna, this museum displays the material recovered by one of the most successful archaeological projects in the world. It was renamed after its late director Santiago Uceda and combines exhibition halls, a research centre and a theatre.
Founded by the Trujillo painter Gerardo Chávez, who died in 2025, this museum in the El Bosque area was the first museum of modern art in Peru. It shows works by Peruvian and foreign artists along with sculpture, and Chávez also opened a toy museum near the Plaza de Armas in 2001.
Trujillo has been the official National Capital of the Marinera since 1986, and the Club Libertad has held its national contest here since 1960, in January from 1967 and in the Coliseo Gran Chimú from 1970, with a float parade through the old centre. Since 2023 it has moved temporarily to Callao.
Held every year since 1950 by the Lions Club between late September and early October, this festival honours the nickname of Trujillo. Its highlight is the Corso parade of spring floats and beauty queens along the main avenues, and a Peruvian Paso horse contest takes place at the same time.
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