Location: Central Andes.
Area: 22 133 km2.
Capital: Huancavelica (3676 masl)
Altitude: Minimum: 1900 masl (Ocoyo)
Maximum: 4475 masl (Santa Ana)

Bright green meadows and fertile fields form the perfect backdrop for Huancavelica. Shepherds watch over their flocks in the upper mountain reaches while the highland wind whips through the puna, the high Andean plain. The city of Huancavelica, capital of the Huancavelica department, is striving to achieve the development that the surrounding geography permits and which the hard-working nature of its people deserves. Of colonial origin, the city was during the sixteenth century just a way station for the Spanish Conquerors passing through on their way to the silver mines in the region, which gave rise to a city of miners, muledrivers and traders.

Today, most of Huancavelica's inhabitants are involved in farming and mining and have kept many of their customs and traditions alive. Buses often drive into the main square, where the visitor is received with the habitual friendliness of the Peruvian highlanders. Travelers can tour the churches and colonial mansions, many of them built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or take a car and drive around the archaeological sites that dot the city's outskirts. Some of them, like the Inca ruins of Incahuasi or the Inkañan Uchkus complex, lie just a few kilometers outside of town and are easily reached.

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