Piura () is a coastal department and

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

in northwestern

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The region's capital is Piura and its largest port cities,

Paita Paita is a city in northwestern Peru. It is the capital of the Paita Province which is in the Piura Region. It is a leading seaport in the region. Paita is located 1,089 km northwest of the country's capital Lima, and 57 km northwest of ...

and Talara, are also among the most important in Peru. The area is known for its tropical and dry beaches. It is the most populous department and region in Peru, its twelfth smallest department, and its fourth-most densely populated department, after Tumbes, La Libertad, and Lambayeque. The country's latest decentralization program is in hiatus after the proposal to merge departments was defeated in the national referendum in October 2005. The

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

held on October 30, 2005, as part of the ongoing decentralization process in Peru, to decide whether the region would merge with the current regions of Lambayeque and Tumbes to create a new ''Región Norte'' was defeated.

Geography

The Piura Region is bordered to the north by the

Tumbes Region Tumbes () is a coastal department and region in northwestern Peru bordering Ecuador. Due to the region's location near the Equator it has a warm climate, with beaches that are considered among the finest in Peru. Despite its small area, the re ...

and

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, to the east by Cajamarca Region, to the south by the

Lambayeque Region Lambayeque () is a Administrative divisions of Peru, department and Regional Government of Lambayeque, region in northwestern Peru known for its rich Moche culture, Moche and Chimú culture, Chimú historical past. The region's name originates ...

, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. "Punta Pariñas" in Piura is South America's most western point. The territory of the Piura Region has many climate variations due to its geographical location. It is just 4 degrees south of the equator, yet receives two ocean currents at the same time: the cold Humboldt Current () and the warm

El Niño EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...

Current (). This makes the Piura Region a land that is both tropical and arid at the same time, ''The Land where the Tropics meets The Desert'' The coast is divided by the Peruvian ''subtropical desert'' of Sechura on the south and

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

-like scrub Tumbes–Piura dry forests to the center and north of the region. There are also small valleys of tropical climate, where

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

and

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (biology), family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, ...

fields are common, especially around the Piura and Sullana rivers. There is

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

(''selva alta'') as one goes away from the coast onto the sierra.

Páramo Páramo () may refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

climates and cooler temperatures appear higher in the sierra. Topography is smooth in the coast and rough in the Sierra. There are many arid plains in the southern region. The

Sechura Desert The Sechura Desert is a coastal desert located south of the Piura Region of Peru along the Pacific coast and inland to the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Its extreme aridity is caused by the upwelling of cold coastal waters and subtropical a ...

, located south of the Piura River, is Peru's largest desert and one of the world's few examples of a tropical desert; it borders a tropical terrain to the north. The Bayóvar Depression, which is the lowest point in Peru and all of the Southern Tropics, is located in this desert. The morphological forms most common in the coast are the dry

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...

that suddenly become copious when there are heavy rains, forming tropical dry forests all over. Other features are half-moon shaped

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

s, the marine terraces such as those of Máncora, Talara and Lobitos. Valleys have been formed by fluvial terraces of the Chira River and Piura River. To the east, valleys are more or less deep and have been eroded by rivers forming ''equatorial tropical-dry-forests''. The major peak surpasses 3000 m. The Paso de Porculla, in the southwest of the territory is only 2,138 meters high and is the lowest pass of the Peruvian Andes. The rivers crossing its territory belong both to the Pacific watershed and to the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries ...

. The Chira River is the most important and flows into the Pacific Ocean. The Piura River also flows into the Pacific Ocean although the flow varies greatly with the changing seasons and during severe droughts will dry up.

Climate

The climate is

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones immediately to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Ge ...

and tropical savanna in the center and north coast,

Semi-arid A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a aridity, dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below Evapotranspiration#Potential evapotranspiration, potential evapotranspiration, but not as l ...

in the southern coast near

. Piura has a tropical dry or tropical savanna climate

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

weather that averages throughout the whole year. Pleasant warm winters (June to October) that average between during the daytime and lows around during the night. In 2013 and 2016, Chulucanas and the Lancones District, two places in the Department of Piura, recorded a temperature of . This is the highest temperature to have ever been recorded in Peru. Piura is covered by deserts, tropical valleys, dry equatorial forests, tropical montane climates as you reach between 1000 and 1500 meters, and a humid subtropical sierra climate if you reach over 2,000 meters. The

climate is found in the higher regions of the Sierra. Rain is scarce from May to November: it rains only from December to April at discontinuous rates due to the influence of the

Current, but every so often, when the El Niño phenomenon arrives, rain is copious and makes the dry ravines become alive, giving rise not only to the impressive forests but to many floods and great landslides. El Niño occurs when ocean waters reach . When ocean water temperatures elevate 1 or 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than , the consequence could be catastrophic rains. Although ocean waters can drop to during the dry winter months (May to October), they can also rise to during the humid summer months (December to April); this calls for pleasant rains; yet if the temperatures rise 1 or 1.5 °C degrees above that, El Niño is assured. During the hottest days of summer (December to April), temperatures can reach almost inland. During night time, 30s or even high 20s may seem unpleasant, which urge people to go to beach resorts such as Máncora or Colán. The rest of the months have pleasant summer temperatures in the low 30s and mid 20s °C (77–90 °F).

Natural resources and wildlife

Piura is a land of unique algarrobo trees, a variety of mesquite similar to the

carob The carob ( ; ''Ceratonia siliqua'') is a flowering evergreen tree or shrub in the Caesalpinioideae sub-family of the legume family, Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated for its edible fruit, which takes the form of seed pods, and as an ornam ...

, and it is the region with the most equatorial tropical dry forests in the whole Pacific. These ecoregions carry a unique variety of orchids, birds, reptiles, plants and mammals. Piura is known for the best and oldest lime-lemons in South America as well as South America's finest

mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree '' Mangifera indica''. It originated from the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South and Southeast As ...

(tropical dry). With Lambayeque, it is the original home of Pima cotton. Piura also produces bananas, coconuts, rice and other fruits as local income. The " Manglares de San Pedro de Vice" in Sechura Province of Piura are the southernmost mangroves on the Pacific coast of South America. Its development has been favoured also by the

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

found in the ocean of Talara Province, fishing is blessed by two ocean currents, silver mines are common and the current Bayovar Deposits are present as well.

History

The most important culture that developed in the Piura region was Vicús, which stood out for its

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

s and delicate work in

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. The Tallanes or Yungas, however, were the first settlers, who migrated from the Sierra. During a period that is still vague, they lived in ''behetrias'', which were primitive settlements without a head or an organization. Later they were conquered by the Mochicas and, centuries later, by the

Inca The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

s, during the rule of Tupac Inca Yupanqui. In 1532,

Francisco Pizarro Francisco Pizarro, Marquess of the Atabillos (; ; – 26 June 1541) was a Spanish ''conquistador'', best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Born in Trujillo, Cáceres, Trujillo, Spain, to a poor fam ...

founded the first Spanish city in South America on the banks of the Chira River in the Tangarará Valley. He named it San Miguel de Piura. The founding date is still subject of controversy. However, during the 450th anniversary celebrations, July 15 was adopted as the official date. In 1534, due to a lack of sanitary conditions, the capital was moved to Monte de los Padres ( Morropón); in 1578, and for the same reason, it was moved again, this time to San Francisco de la Buena Esperanza (

). In 1588, the permanent attacks of the English

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

s and

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

s forced a final relocation of the capital to Piura. During colonial times, life went by peacefully. Yet, the raids against the Spanish authorities led by Admirals Borran and Cochrane, members of the libertarian expedition of

José de San Martín José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (; 25 February 177817 August 1850), nicknamed "the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru", was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and central parts of South America's succe ...

, woke the longing for liberty in the minds of the local people.

Culture and customs of Piura

Piura is host to a stunning ''

mestizo ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturall ...

'' culture, since all races mix here. Local ''Piuranos'' have a different accent from their neighbours at both sides since: they tend elongate their syllables in a similar ways to northern Mexicans. ''Piuranos'' have their own proud slang. Locals for example, call themselves ''Churres'' (popular term used for a young Piuran or northern person). ''Piuranos'' are characterized by their witty minds, melancolic ''Tondero music'' and welcoming personalities. Like many Peruvians, they enjoy drinking

chicha de jora Chicha de jora is a corn beer or chicha prepared by Germination, germinating maize, extracting the malt sugars, boiling the Wort (brewing), wort, and fermenting it in large vessels (traditionally huge earthenware vats) for several days. The proces ...

, pisco or beer and many of them have a tendency towards creativity and art as their source of income. Local gastronomical dishes include the Piuran Secho de Chavelo (the capital's dish), Algarrobina cocktails, many types of ceviches and other seafoods like Majarisco and Pasao al Agua. Piura is famed for its natilla sweets as well. The warm climate of this region forbids hard labour from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., so it is common tradition to take ''siestas'' and better to wake up early to get important stuff done before noon. Processions and religious folk are passionately practiced by some of the locals. One of them is Cristo de Ayabaca. Popular crafts are the Chulucana Pottery and handy hats and silversmith arts made from the Catacaos Province. Northern cowboys can still be seen today wandering the deserts of Sechura, Catacaos and the forests of Morropon transporting their goods using donkeys and mules. They seem to resemble physically the "American Southwest"

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

s, or Argentinian

gaucho A gaucho () or gaúcho () is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the southern part of Bolivia, and the south of Chilean Patago ...

s and Mexican

charro ''Charro'', in Mexico, is historically the horseman from the countryside, the Ranchero, who lived and worked in the haciendas and performed all his tasks on horseback, working mainly as vaqueros and caporales, among other jobs. He was ren ...

s. They are noted not only for their abilities to sing and play ''Cumanana and Tondero'' but as silversmiths that work the filigree

earring Earrings are jewelry that can be worn on one's ears. Earrings are commonly worn in a piercing in the earlobe or another external part of the ear, or by #Clip-on and other non-pierced earrings, some other means, such as stickers or clip-ons. Earr ...

leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning (leather), tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffal ...

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

s, wooden and silver utensils of Catacaos region.

Music

The Tondero and Cumanana are the traditional music of the Piura Region. Chicha music, now called Tecnocumbia (originally a Peruvian styled cumbia with electronic elements), is the modern version of popular music all over, as well as ''Salsa'' among youngsters. Another great tradition that is sung by all northern Peruvians is the famous ''Peruvian Waltz'', well practiced by traditional musicians (northern Peruvians have their style).

Political division

The region is divided into 8 provinces (, singular: ), which are composed of 64 districts (''distritos'', singular: ''distrito''). The provinces, with their capitals in parentheses, are: # Ayabaca ( Ayabaca) # Huancabamba ( Huancabamba) # Morropón ( Chulucanas) #

(

) # Piura ( Piura) # Sechura ( Sechura) # Sullana ( Sullana) # Talara ( Talara)

Populated places

Populated places include: * Angostura * Ayabaca * Cabo Blanco * Cajunga * Catacaos * Chato * Chulucanas * Huancabamba * Máncora *

* Piura *

Punta Arenas Punta Arenas (, historically known as Sandy Point in English) is the capital List of cities in Chile, city of Chile's southernmost Regions of Chile, region, Magallanes Region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. Although officially renamed as ...

* Sechura * Sullana * Talara * Tambogrande

References

External links

Portal Oficial del Gobierno Regional Piura
– Piura Regional Government official website
''Diario El Regional de Piura''
– Regional newspaper {{Authority control Piura Piura