Pre-Columbian era The territory in which Chimbote is currently located has been successively populated by the
Recuay,
Moche,
Wari,
Chimor and
Inca cultures. The archaeological centers of Huaca San Pedro, El Castillo, among others, testify to this. It is thought that the same ethnic group populated these lands, the Maya, but the aborigines were later dispersed and decimated when the
Conquest of America occurred.
Colonial era It is in the book Introduction and description of the provinces belonging to the Archbishopric of Lima of 1774, written by Cosme Bueno, that the name of Chimbote appears for the first time in an official document. The reference tells [...] that the old Villa de Santa María de la Parrilla (Santa), has a small fishing village called Chimbote attached to it. Ethnography refers to these first settlers as fishermen from the resort of Huanchaco, west of Trujillo, which is why they were called huanchaqueros.
Republican era In 1835, when General
Santa Cruz granted Chimbote's first official acknowledgement, Chimbote was a village of
fishermen with a population of no more than 800. During the Lynch expedition, an episode of the
War of the Pacific, Chimbote was occupied by the
Chilean Army, the Cambio Puente hacienda. As in the other occupations, the owner, Dionisio Derteano, was required to pay a fee so that the looting would not take place, but this was impossible, because in addition to demanding a very high amount, the Peruvian State closed the banks in order to avoid these quotas. Consequently, the enemy looted and destroyed the harvest, the mill and everything in it. In 1871, an agreement was made with
Henry Meiggs to build a
railroad towards the interior of the country. Chimbote was classified as a
port, even though its population remained around 1,000. The opening of the
Pan-American Highway created easy access to Lima in the 1930s. In 1881, there was an attempt to cede a naval base to the U.S. in Chimbote Bay by Peru. The deal was blocked by Chile who sent its marines to occupy Chimbote after learning of the deal to cede a naval base to the U.S. Navy. In 1940, Chimbote was still a small
fishing port, with only 2,400 inhabitants in an urbanized area of . In 1943, the government created the
Corporación Peruana del Santa (Peruvian Corporation of Santa). This entity assumed ownership of the
railroad, made improvements to the
port, and began work on a
hydroelectric power station on the Río Santa (in the
Cañón del Pato [Duck Canyon] in
Huallanca). The first stage of the power station was inaugurated in 1958; also that year, an iron and steel plant was built. By 1943, the first companies dedicated to the extraction of liver from the
Pacific bonito fish arrived. This liver was sold for a high price abroad due to World War II. In the 1950s, port activity was consolidated with the constitution of the Peruvian Corporation of Santa, the construction of the Cañón de Pato hydroelectric plant and the beginning of steel activities. Around that time there were already some fish processing plants on the outskirts of the city. However, it was only in the 1960s that massive exploitation began, largely at the initiative of Luis Banchero Rossi, beginning the disorderly migratory exodus due to the high demand for labor. This growth also implied the arrival of services that made the growth of the city chaotic and disproportionate to plans. The following decade would see the decline of the economy due to two factors: overfishing and environmental pollution, a product of the industry that depleted the schools of the coast, and climatic factors such as the
El Niño phenomenon. Also in the year 1970, the bitter
1970 Ancash earthquake occurred, which reduced much of the city's infrastructure and real estate to rubble displacing many people, not counting the numerous deaths in Chimbote and the rest of the department; A big problem was already coming to Chimbote. Many people left Chimbote and moved to the nearby Nuevo Chimbote.
Present The last few decades have been one of reorganization and ordering in process for Chimbote. After the collapse of the fishing industry and a new strong El Niño around 1983, interests were turned to agribusiness, tourism and commerce. In recent years, efforts have been made to recover the bay and remodel several buildings and public places. == Geography ==