Department of Ayacucho

Ayacucho (Spanish pronunciation: [aʝaˈkutʃo] ^ⓘ), known as Huamanga from its creation in 1822 until 1825, is a department of Peru. It is located in the south-central Andes of the country, the region was one of the hardest hit in the 1980s during the guerrilla war waged by Shining Path. It is administered by a regional government. Its capital is the city of Ayacucho.

A referendum was held on 30 October 2005, in order to decide whether the department would merge with the departments of Ica and Huancavelica to form the new Ica-Ayacucho-Huancavelica Region, as part of the decentralization process in Peru. The proposal failed and no merger was carried out.^{[citation needed]}

The department is divided into 11 provinces (Spanish: provincias, singular: provincia), which are composed of 111 districts (distritos, singular: distrito).

The provinces, with their capitals in parentheses, are:

According to the 2007 Peru Census, the language learnt first by most of the residents was Quechua (63.05%) followed by Spanish (36.57%). The Quechua variety spoken in Ayacucho is Chanka Quechua. The following table shows the results concerning the language learnt first in the department by province:

13°09′47″S 74°13′28″W / 13.16306°S 74.22444°W / -13.16306; -74.22444