National capital
Lima is the capital city of the Republic of Peru. As such, it is the seat of the three powers that make up the Peruvian State. Thus, the Executive Power has its headquarters in the Government Palace located in the Plaza Mayor. The Legislative Powerof Peru constituted by the Congress of the Republic and the Judicial Power of Peru with its highest organ, the Supreme Court of Justice, are also in the city.
In the same way, all the Ministries have their main headquarters in the city of Lima. At the international level, the city is also the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Andean Community of Nations and the South American Community of Nations, among other regional and international organizations.
As practically all the political, industrial and financial power of the country is concentrated in Lima, it has produced a serious centralism, which is demonstrated in the population and economic disproportion of the capital city compared to other important cities in the country, such as Arequipa, Trujillo or Cuzco.
local government
There is no governing body of the city as such. The city is included in the Province of Lima, which is subdivided into 43 districts, so the local authority is the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima, which, unlike other municipalities, is the only one that has the “metropolitan” character. The Municipality has jurisdiction over the entire territory of the province. Each of the 43 districts over which the city extends has its own District Municipality, which has jurisdiction over its own district, but they also have an obligation to coordinate with the Metropolitan Municipality. The current mayor of the city is Marco Parra Sánchez, who has held the Municipal Armchair since the resignation of Luis Castañeda in October 2010.
Political government
Unlike the rest of the republic, the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima also exercises Regional Government functions since it is not part of any administrative region, according to Article 65 of Law 27867 of Regional Governments of November 16, 2002.
However, the previous political organization is maintained in the sense that there is still a “Governor” who is the political authority in the entire scope of the department of Lima and the city itself. The functions of this authority are more police and military. The city administration itself is assigned to the local municipal authority.
Judicial function
Lima is the seat of the Superior Court of Justice of Lima, the governing body of the Lima Judicial District. According to the Peruvian judicial organization, the city of Lima has the largest judicial burden despite the fact that it only has jurisdiction over 35 of the 43 districts that make up the province of Lima. Thus, there are one hundred and fifty-three justices of the peace (65 non-legal justices of the peace and 88 legal justices of the peace); two hundred and twenty-nine specialized courts(89 civil, 21 family, 6 commercial, 29 labor, 69 criminal and 15 mixed); and thirty-three superior courts (eight civil, two family, one commercial, six labor, and 16 criminal).
Likewise, within the territory of the city there is the “Superior Court of the Northern Cone”, the governing body of the Northern Cone judicial District, which includes twenty-four justices of the peace ; forty-one specialized courts (7 civil, 7 family, 1 labor, 19 criminal and 7 mixed); and six superior rooms (two civil and four criminal).
Urban Problems
From the middle of the 20th century, Lima began to receive important contingents of people coming from the interior of the country. The rural exodus intensified between the 1950s and 1960s, and its magnitude contributed to decisively change the ethnic composition of the Peruvian capital, since the new human settlements that emerged were mainly made up of residents of the interior of the country, mostly ethnic groups. indigenous. The magnitude of the problem of informal settlements in Peru has contributed to the fact that this Andean country has been one of the Latin American countries subject to the greatest number of sociological investigations on shantytowns with precarious housing, becoming the phenomenon of Sub-housing object of study by various universities, social scientists and non-governmental organizations. Over time, the rural characteristics of the conglomerate of people living in informal settlements have diminished, as the new generations have already grown up in the city and have adopted urban customs. Currently, the growth of the city is not based so much on immigration from the countryside, but on the natural growth of the population of the peripheral neighborhoods.
Despite progressively improving health and access to public services indices in the most impoverished areas of the city, levels of social inequality persist. although they are certainly decreasing due to the economic growth experienced by the country.
Education
According to thesciencetutor, Lima is the main cultural center of Peru. It houses 28 universities, among which is the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Dean of America, the oldest in the continent, founded on May 12, 1551, leading to the celebration of the Peruvian University Day.
Other state universities have an important role in teaching and research, such as the National Engineering University, founded in 1876, the National University of Callao, the Federico Villarreal National University, the La Molina National AgrarianUniversity and the only University dedicated to the training of Teachers., the National University of Education Enrique Guzmán y Valle, known as “La Cantuta” located in Chosica and founded on July 6, 1822 by the Liberator Don José de San Martín, thus giving rise to the celebration of Teacher’s Day, for being the date of foundation of the first School of Preceptors in Peru.
The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru is the first private university in the country (founded in 1917). Other university institutions located in the city are the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University (which was founded on December 21, 1964 by the AIPP Association of the Greater National University of San Marcos), ESAN University, the University of Piura, the University of Pacific University, the University of Lima, the Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia, the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences, the Southern Scientific University, the San Ignacio de Loyola University, the Ricardo Palma University, among others.
