Huacho

Huacho is a city in Peru, the capital of Huaura Province and of the Lima Region, and the most populated city of the Lima Region and of the Norte Chico. It stands 68 metres above sea level, 148 km north of the city of Lima on the Pan-American Highway, close to the Lachay National Reserve. The city is settled at the bottom of a wide bay, and the surrounding land holds rice, cotton, sugarcane and grain fields that supported a notable cotton industry, along with cotton and oil factories, salt mines and beaches such as El Paraiso. The Spanish colonial authorities under Viceroy Francisco de Toledo grouped the local ayllus into a reduction named San Bartolome de Guachu on 25 August 1571, and Huacho later grew into a trading and fishing port, was granted the category of pueblo in 1774 and was elevated to district on 12 February 1821.