Chan Chan

Chan Chan is a city made of earth. On the desert coast of northern Peru, in the Moche Valley, the capital of the Chimú kingdom spread across some 20 square kilometres, and it is regarded as the largest adobe-built city in the Americas. Its walls of sun-dried mud brick, up to 12 metres high and around 5 metres thick at the base, still enclose vast courtyards, corridors and plazas, and their smooth surfaces are carved with reliefs of the sea: fish swimming north and south, pelicans, otters, crabs, turtles, rolling waves and the lattice of fishing nets.

Building began around 850 CE, and from roughly 900 the city was the seat of Chimor, a kingdom of the north Peruvian coast. At its height its dense core of about 6 square kilometres may have held 40,000 to 60,000 people. The centre is organised into ten great walled compounds, often called ciudadelas, each understood as the palace of a ruler, containing ceremonial courts, U-shaped administrative structures known as audiencias, storerooms, a water reservoir and a funerary platform with elite burials. The best known is Nik An, long called the Tschudi palace, whose walls carry many of the sea-themed friezes; others carry names such as Utzh An and Fochic An.

The Inca conquered Chimor around 1470. The Spanish founded Trujillo nearby in 1535, and the city, still famed for its riches, was looted. A site museum keeps textiles, metalwork and carved wooden guardian figures found at palace entrances. UNESCO inscribed Chan Chan on the World Heritage List in 1986 and at the same time placed it on the List in Danger, because heavy rains, flooding and wind, especially during El Niño years, erode the unfired mud.

Getting there

Chan Chan lies about 5 km west of central Trujillo, along the road from Trujillo to the beach town of Huanchaco. The nearest airport is Capitán FAP Carlos Martínez de Pinillos International Airport (TRU) at Trujillo, also about 5 km away.