Viceroyalty of Peru Guayaquil and El Callao, but on 4 February he captured Valdivia, called at the time "The Key of the South Seas" and the "Gibraltar of the Pacific", due to its huge fortifications. However the viceroyalty managed to defend Chiloé Island until 1826. On September 8, 1820, the "Expedición Libertadora" of Peru, organized mainly by Argentinians and with some Peruvian and Chilean involvement, landed on the beach at Paracas Bay, near the city of Pisco, Peru. The army was under the command of José de San Martín. After fruitless negotiations with the viceroy, San Martín occupied the Peruvian capital of Lima
Peru as loose confederation of cities scattered along the coast of northern Peru and southern Ecuador, the Chimu flourished from about 1140 to 1450. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo. In the highlands, both the Tiahuanaco culture, near Lake Titicaca in both Peru and Bolivia, and the Wari culture, near the present-day city of Ayacucho, developed large urban settlements and wide-ranging state systems between 500 and 1000 AD. In the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in