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The city of El Callao is the port of Lima, Peru. It was founded in 1537, just two years after Lima ( 1535), and soon became the main port for Spanish commerce in the Pacific. At the height of the Viceroyalty, virtually all goods produced in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina were carried over the Andes by mule to Callao, to be shipped to Panama, carried overland, and then transported on to Spain via Cuba.

In 1746, an earthquake caused a tsunamiA tsunami (from Japanese meaning wave in port (the term tidal wave is generally synonymous, but not in scientific usage, as tsunamis are not related to tides) is one or a series of waves that occur after an earthquake, seaquake, volcanic activity, slumps, which destroyed the entire port.

In the naval Battle of Callao , the Spanish fleet tried to reconquer independent Peru.

An historical fortress, the Castillo de Real Felipe , still stands on the promontory. There is also a large naval base in Callao, in which the leader of Sendero Luminoso rebel movement, Abimael GuzmánManuel Ruben Abimael Guzman Reynoso (born 3 December, 1934), known also as President Gonzalo is a former professor of philosophy who became the leader of the Communist Party of Peru, a terrorist Maoist movement known also as the Shining Path Sendero Lumin, and Vladimiro MontesinosVladimiro Lenin Montesinos Torres (born on May 20, 1945) was the long-time head of Peru's intelligence service Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional or "SIN") under President Alberto Fujimori. Early Career In 1965 he took the Cadet Course at the School of the, the ex-director of internal security during the FujimoriAlberto Kenyo Fujimori Fujimori (born July 28, 1938) was president of Peru from July 28, 1990, to November 17, 2000, when he fled to Japan as allegations of far-reaching corruption in his administration began to emerge. From Japan, he submitted his resign regime are imprisoned.

On a bluff overlooking the ocean sits Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado , the military high school Peruvian author Mario Vargas LlosaThe Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (born March 28, 1936) is one of Latin America's leading novelists and essayists. Born in Arequipa, to a middle class family, Vargas Llosa attended Peruvian private and military schools. He attended graduate school in attended and made famous in his first novel, La Ciudad y los Perros (1962) (published in English as The Time of the Hero in 1963). The book was later filmed as The City and the Dogs and featured exterior shots of the school.

Callao, although contiguous with urban Lima, is a separate department within the province of Lima. It features a peninsula where it used to be the old high class Italians immigrants neighborhood, the district of La Punta. El Callao also has a few islands near that peninsula, and they are called La Isla San Lorenzo, a military base nowadays and former jail of Abimael Guzmán; Isla EL Frontón, a former high security prison; Islas Cavinzas and Islas Palomino (Palomino Islands), where a large number of sea lions and sea birds live in a virtually untouched ecosystem.