Kingdom of Chimor (Chimú)

The Kingdom of Chimor, the political expression of the Chimú culture, arose around 900 CE on the north coast of Peru, succeeding the earlier Moche civilisation.

It grew into the largest and most powerful Andean state of the Late Intermediate Period and the greatest indigenous polity in the Americas before the Inca, eventually controlling roughly 1,000 to 1,300 kilometres of Pacific coastline from the Jequetepeque region toward the area near present-day Lima. According to Chimú oral tradition, the dynasty was founded by the legendary ruler Taycanamo, who arrived in the Moche Valley by sea on a balsa raft, and his successors expanded the realm by conquest. Its capital, Chan Chan, near modern Trujillo, was the largest adobe (mud-brick) city in the Americas, covering some 20 square kilometres with a population estimated at 40,000 to 60,000 and organised around monumental royal compounds called ciudadelas. The Chimú state managed extensive irrigation works and intensive coastal agriculture, supported large communities of specialised artisans renowned for metallurgy in gold, silver, and copper, distinctive black monochrome pottery, and textiles, and controlled long-distance trade in prized Spondylus shell. Around 1470 the kingdom was conquered by the Inca emperor Topa Inca Yupanqui, who captured the last independent ruler Minchançaman; Chimú administrative practices and craftsmen were subsequently absorbed into and influential upon the Inca Empire.