Ica

Ica is the capital of Peru's Ica Region, on the desert coast about 300 kilometers south of Lima at an elevation of about 406 meters. Spanish conquistador Jeronimo Luis de Cabrera founded the city on June 17, 1563, under the name Villa de Valverde, and it remained under Spanish colonial rule until Peru's 1821 independence. A 2022 estimate put the city's population at 325,700, with a metropolitan population of about 390,403. Known as the City of Eternal Sun and the Cradle of Pisco for its brandy production, Ica suffered severe damage, with roughly eighty percent of its buildings destroyed, in the magnitude 8.0 earthquake of August 15, 2007.