Yungay, Peru

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Coordinates: 09°08′22″S 77°44′42″W / -9.13944, -77.745
Yungay
Cemetery in Yungay
Yungay Location of in Peru
Country	Peru
Region	Ancash Region
Province	Yungay Province
District	Yungay District

Yungay is a town in the Ancash Region in north central Peru, South America.

1 Location
2 History
3 Ancash Earthquake
4 Pop Culture Reference
5 External links

[edit] Location

Yungay is located in the Callejón de Huaylas on Río Santa at an elevation of 2,500 m, 450 km north of Lima, the country's capital. East of the small town there are the mountain ridges of snow-covered Cordillera Blanca, with Huascarán, Peru's highest mountain, no more than 15 km east of Yungay.

Yungay is the capital of Yungay Province, as well as the main town in the Yungay District. Yungay Province has a population of 60,000 (2000 estimate). The Province of Yungay occupies part of the Callejón de Huaylas, the Conchucos Valley (Yanama), the coast of Ancash (Quillo) and the Huascarán National Park.

[edit] History

The "Restoration" army, a Chilean-Peruvian army during the War of the Confederation, defeated the army of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation during the Battle of Yungay on January 20, 1839, marking the dissolution of the short-lived confederacy.

A remarkable event of the history of Peru happened in Yungay, where in the Guitarrero Cave US archeologist Thomas F. Lynch (Cornell University, USA, 1969) discovered very old cultural vestiges from circa 10,000 BCE, making this place "one of the great testimonies of the origin of agriculture in América".

[edit] Ancash Earthquake

Cemetery in Yungay

On May 31, 1970 a landslide caused by the 1970 Ancash earthquake buried the whole town, killing 25,000 persons. Only 92 people survived, most of whom were in the cemetery and stadium at the time of the earthquake, as these zones were the highest in town.

The Peruvian government has forbidden excavation in the area where the old town of Yungay is buried, declaring it a national cemetery.

[edit] Pop Culture Reference

A television commercial for a Peruvian language institute made the city popular, when it showed an American tourist talking to a Peruvian security guard, telling him that she had fallen madly in love with him, saying "I love you guy". The security guard didn't speak English, so he thought she was asking about a street named after the city of 'Yungay'. The TV ad became very popular in Peru and has become part of the country's pop culture.