Chan Chan is the largest city ever built of adobe, and the largest pre-Columbian city in South America. Its walls, raised without a single fired brick, still carry carved friezes of fish, birds and waves that once wrapped the reception halls of Chimú kings.
At a glance
Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimú Empire, built up over roughly five centuries from around 900 to 1470 CE on the Peruvian north coast near modern Trujillo. It covered some 20 square kilometres and held nine walled royal compounds, each raised by a successive king, along with quarters for craftsmen and a population estimated at tens of thousands.
The city has no permanent river running through it. Its water came from wells sunk to the water table and from a canal system running some 74 kilometres from the Chicama valley, reckoned the longest hydraulic works of the pre-Columbian Americas. Chan Chan is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since its inscription in 1986, chiefly because of erosion from El Niño rains.
Key facts
- Empire: capital of the Chimú, or Kingdom of Chimor, from about 900 to 1470 CE.
- Scale: roughly 20 square kilometres of urban area and nine royal compounds, or ciudadelas.
- Political system: split inheritance, whereby a dead king’s palace, wealth and retainers stayed with his heirs to maintain his cult, forcing each new king to build an entirely new compound.
- Water supply: infiltration wells and a roughly 74-kilometre canal bringing water from the Chicama river valley.
- Conservation status: UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed as in danger since 1986 owing largely to El Niño rainfall.
History
The Chimú Empire, also called the Kingdom of Chimor, was the second-largest state in pre-Columbian South America after the Inca. At its height it controlled around 1,000 kilometres of Pacific coastline, and Chan Chan served as its economic and political heart, renowned for metalwork in gold, silver and copper bronze, for textiles and for hydraulic engineering.
In 1470 the Inca crown prince Tupac Inca Yupanqui, later the tenth Sapa Inca, laid siege to the city after some three years of Chimú resistance. The Chimú king Minchancaman was taken captive to Cusco, and Chimú goldsmiths and silversmiths were relocated there too, passing their skills into the Inca metalworking tradition.
After the Spanish conquest of 1532, Chan Chan was stripped of much of its remaining wealth: the gold and silver burial offerings within the ciudadelas were looted and melted down during the colonial period, leaving the empty burial chambers seen today.
What you see
Visitors follow a signposted circuit through the Tschudi ciudadela, the best preserved and most accessible of the nine compounds, entered through a tall corbelled gateway. Inside, the U-shaped audiencias, or reception rooms, carry carved adobe friezes on three walls apiece, worked with repeating motifs of fish, waves, birds and other creatures.
The circuit also passes the burial platform, a multi-level royal mound whose chambers were emptied by colonial-era looters, and the huachaques, sunken garden and well areas where the Chimú tapped groundwater a few metres below the surface to grow crops and raise fish. A site museum near the entrance sets out the history of the Chimú civilisation, the layout of the wider city and the conservation problems it faces.
That last point is visible everywhere: the adobe was built for a desert coast, and heavy rain from El Niño events, most severely in 1997 and 1998, has eroded walls and friezes badly enough that Chan Chan remains on the UNESCO danger list.
Practical information
- Site access: a combined ticket covers the Chan Chan archaeological zone together with the nearby Huaca Arco Iris and Huaca Esmeralda; check current arrangements and hours with the site’s ticket office before visiting.
- Best time to go: the coast is a desert climate and the site is dry for most of the year, though heavy rain during El Niño episodes can affect access.
- On site: the Museo Chan Chan at the entrance is worth a stop before walking the Tschudi circuit.
Getting there
Chan Chan lies a short distance west of Trujillo, the largest city in northern Peru, which is served by air from Lima. From Trujillo a taxi covers the remaining stretch to the site; travellers can also combine a visit with the Moche pyramids of Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna to the south of the city.
Nearby
- Huaca Arco Iris — included on the combined Chan Chan ticket, a Chimú adobe temple within Trujillo’s urban fringe.
- Huaca Esmeralda — also covered by the combined ticket, another Chimú adobe structure near the city.
- Huaca del Sol y de la Luna — Moche pyramids a few kilometres south of Trujillo, predating Chan Chan and known for polychrome fresco murals.
- Trujillo — the regional city closest to the site, Peru’s third largest.
Sources
- UNESCO
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