Chan Chan

Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimor kingdom, its ruins in Peru's La Libertad region about 5 kilometers west of Trujillo, spread across roughly 20 square kilometers and ranked as the largest city of the pre-Columbian era in South America. Built beginning around 850 AD, it is the largest adobe city in the world, its mud-brick walls carved with intricate friezes of marine life and geometric motifs. The Chimor state that Chan Chan led flourished from about 900 to 1470, when the Inca conquered the kingdom, and the city declined further after the Spanish founded nearby Trujillo in 1535. Its dense urban core of about 6 square kilometers held ten walled compounds called ciudadelas, each containing royal palaces, temples, and burial platforms, while surrounding neighborhoods of small irregular rooms housed commoners and artisan workshops. Chan Chan was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986 and remains on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to erosion from El Nino storms.