Tarma

Santa Ana de la Ribera de Tarma, known as Tarma, is the capital of Tarma Province in the Junín Region of Peru, with 43,042 inhabitants at the 2017 census. Before the Incas its gorges were settled by several ethnic groups, among them the Chinchaycocha, the Xauxa and the Palcamayo, and the Incas made it a province with its capital at Tarmatambo, a buffer zone against the large ethnic groups of the region. Tarma was founded under the Spanish policy of reducciones during the rule of the fifth viceroy Francisco de Toledo, between 1569 and 1575, when the provincial seat moved from the slope at Tarmatambo to the valley floor under the name Santa Ana de Pampas. In 1784 the first Intendente, Juan María Gálvez, raised it to a villa, and the name Tarma gradually replaced Pampas. In 1815 the first cadastre counted 775 houses and about 3,500 inhabitants. The city backed General Arenales in 1820 and was the birthplace of General Manuel A. Odría, president from 1948 to 1956.