Plaza de Armas

You are at the exact centre of the historic city. Here, on 12 February 1541, Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago de Nueva Extremadura, and from here distances across the whole country were measured.

1A chessboard city

The master builder Pedro de Gamboa laid out the city on a grid, with square blocks around this main square. In colonial times it was a bare earth space for festivities and markets, and the gallows stood in the middle to execute the condemned. It only became a garden in 1859, and in 1825 a decree renamed it Plaza de la Independencia, a name that never really caught on.

2The buildings of power

Look at the north side. The Central Post Office stands on the plot assigned to Valdivia, where governors and presidents lived until 1846. Next to it, the Palace of the Royal Audiencia, finished around 1807, was the colonial high court; today it is the National History Museum. The row ends with the Town Hall, heir to the old cabildo.

On the west side, the Metropolitan Cathedral is the fifth church built on this plot. Toesca designed its facade, and the Italian Ignazio Cremonesi added the towers at the end of the nineteenth century.

Some researchers argue that an Inca administrative centre once stood beneath this square; it is a hypothesis still under debate, not settled fact.

3What to look for

• The kilometre zero plaque, set in the ground near the centre of the square.
• The equestrian statue of Pedro de Valdivia, beside the cathedral.
• The Monument to the Indigenous Peoples, a large stone head honouring the people who lived here before the conquest.