How large was the city of Lima compared to the nation? The 1940 Census calculated a national population of 6,208,000 people; the province of Lima therefore contained 9 percent of the country’s total. 2,240,000 Peruvians were classified nationally as urban (36.1 percent), while 3,968,000 were rural. The Department of Lima had a population of 829,000, or 13.3 percent of the national total. Slightly more than three quarters (76.1 percent, or 630,000) of the Department’s residents were urban, meaning that the Department of Lima contained 28 percent of the nation’s urban population. The Province of Lima, with a population of 563,000, was (as noted above) 95 percent urban, and was thus home to just under a quarter of the nation’s total urban population. And finally, the District of Lima contained 270,000 people, all of whom were classified as urban, meaning that 12 percent of the country’s total urban population resided in one district. In passing, how did Lima compare to other major cities in Peru? Callao, Lima’s port city, had in 1940 a total of 82,300 (98.8 percent urban), or 14.6 percent of the Metropolitan Lima’s total. The argument can be made, of course, that Callao is so close to Lima (about ten kilometers distant) and the two are so intertwined, that they each feed off one another’s growth. Putting aside Callao, therefore, what were Peru’s largest cities after Lima?
In first place was Arequipa, in the southern highlands. Its provincial population was 129,000, three quarters of which was urban; its capital city (also Arequipa), contained about half of the province (62,000 people), 98 percent of whom were urban. The Province of Arequipa was thus less than a quarter the population of the Province of Lima; the urban population of the city of Arequipa was about 16 percent that of urban Lima. In second place was the northern coastal city of Trujillo, whose provincial population was 117,000, half urban and half rural (59,000 each). Its capital city of Trujillo had a population of 46,000; 37,000, or 80 percent, were urban. Trujillo Province was a fifth the size of the Province of Lima; its urban population was less than a tenth that of urban Lima.
Cuzco was the third largest city in 1940. Located high in Peru’s southern Andes, its population was listed at 46,000 (78 percent urban), or 84 percent of the total Province of Cuzco. The Province of Cuzco was about 7 percent that of the Province of Lima. Or in sum, Lima was in 1940 roughly six times the size of Arequipa, ten times the size of Trujillo, and fourteen times the size of Cuzco.
One other note on Lima-national comparisons: in 1940, the Department of Lima had the largest population in the country, as already noted. But the next four largest departments were all highland (not coastal): Puno (548,000), Cajamarca (494,000), Cuzco (487,000), and Junín (429,000), which together totaled 1,958,000, or 31.5 percent of the country’s total and 2.4 times the size of the Department of Lima. The point is that regardless of Lima’s growth, Peru in 1940 was still largely rural and the majority of its populace resided in the Andean highlands. Despite the growth of the Province of Lima overall from 1931 to 1940, the city itself had changed relatively little administratively. It did expand from eighteen to twenty districts; the new districts were Lince (formed in 1936 out of Lima Cercado), which was totally urban from its beginning, and Chaclacayo (1940), an outlying largely rural area east of the downtown. Other changes involved nomenclature: Magdalena Vieja changed its name to Pueblo Libre; San José de Surco became more commonly known as Barranco; and Santiago de Surco likewise shortened itself to Surco. The1940 Census classified a dozen districts as one hundred percent urban: Lima Cercado, Barranco, Chorrillos, La Victoria, Lince, Magdalena del Mar, Pueblo Libre, Miraflores, Rímac, San Isidro, San Miguel, and Surco. The Census notes (p. xxix) that a decree (9 February 1940) brought these twelve together under the heading of “Lima, ciudad capital”, which meant that these twelve comprised urban metropolitan Lima. Ancón, Ate, Carabayllo, Chaclacayo, Lurigancho, Lurín, Pachacamac and Puente Piedra were listed in the Census as mixed or partially rural districts, and while they were obviously linked to the urban core, they were not at the time part of “Lima, ciudad capital”. The twelve urban and eight mixed/rural districts comprised the Province of Lima. What demographic characteristics did the urban districts have? Not surprisingly, Lima Cercado was still easily the largest district. Its population of 270,000 was about five times larger than the second largest (Rímac, with 57,000) and was by itself almost half (47.9 percent) of the Province of Lima. However, its dominance had continued to slip since 1931, when, it had been home to 53.8 percent of the Province. Gran Lima (the combination of Lima Cercado, La Victoria and Rímac) had a total 1940 population of 382,000, or 68 percent of the Province – dominant to be sure, but, again less than it had been in 1931, when it was 74 percent, or in 1920, when it was 77 percent. (excerpted from chapter 2)
