Ayacucho (), known as Huamanga from its creation in 1822 until 1825, is a department and region of

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 ...

, located in the south-central

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

of the country. Its capital is the city of Ayacucho. The region was one of the hardest hit in the 1980s during the guerrilla war waged by Shining Path known as the internal conflict in Peru. A

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 ...

was held on 30 October 2005, in order to decide whether the department would merge with the departments of Ica and Huancavelica to form the new Ica-Ayacucho-Huancavelica Region, as part of the decentralization process in Peru. The proposal failed and no merger was carried out.

Political division

The department is divided into 11 provinces (, singular: ''provincia''), which are composed of 111 districts (''distritos'', singular: ''distrito'').

Provinces

The provinces, with their capitals in parentheses, are: # Cangallo ( Cangallo) # Huamanga ( Ayacucho) # Huanca Sancos ( Huanca Sancos) # Huanta ( Huanta) # La Mar ( San Miguel) # Lucanas ( Puquio) # Parinacochas ( Coracora) # Paucar del Sara Sara (

Pausa In linguistics, pausa (Latin for 'break', from Greek παῦσις, ''pâusis'' 'stopping, ceasing') is the hiatus between prosodic declination units. The concept is somewhat broad, as it is primarily used to refer to allophones that occur in ...

) #

Sucre Sucre (; ) is the ''de jure'' capital city of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department and the sixth most populous city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of . This relatively high ...

( Querobamba) # Víctor Fajardo ( Huancapi) # Vilcas Huamán ( Vilcas Huamán)

Demographics

Languages

According to the

2007 Peru Census The 2007 Peru Census was a detailed enumeration of the Peruvian population. It was conducted by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática on Sunday, October 21, 2007. Its full name in Spanish is XI Censo de Población y VI de Vivie ...

, the language learnt first by most of the residents was Quechua (63.05%) followed by Spanish (36.57%). The Quechua variety spoken in Ayacucho is Chanka Quechua. The following table shows the results concerning the language learnt first in the department by province:inei.gob.pe
INEI, Peru, Censos Nacionales 2007

Gallery

Image:Peru - Altiplano1.jpg, The

go across the Ayacucho Region Image:Obelisk Battle of Ayacucho and Sucre MC.jpg, Statue of

Antonio José de Sucre Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá (; 3 February 1795 – 4 June 1830), known as the "Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho" (), was a Venezuelan general and politician who served as the president of Bolivia from 1825 to 1828. A close friend and associate ...

and obelisk near Kinwa, commemorating the Battle of Ayacucho. Image:Peru - HotSprings.jpg, Hot springs in the region of Ayacucho. Image:Obelisk Battle of Ayacucho1 MC.jpg, Obelisk near Kinwa, commemorating the Battle of Ayacucho. Image:Ayacucho church by night.jpg, Church of Ayacucho

References

External links

Ayacucho Regional Government official website
Ayacucho Ayacucho {{Ayacucho-geo-stub