Avenida España (Lima)

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Avenida España (Spain Avenue) is a major east–west street in Lima, Peru. It is named after Spain and was formerly known as Avenida de la Exposición (Avenue of the Exhibition) and, until 1931, Avenida Alfonso XIII.

The avenue runs about seven blocks through the Lima and Breña districts. It starts near Plaza Grau at Paseo de la República and continues westward, with Metropolitano bus tracks along part of its route between Paseo de la República and Avenida Alfonso Ugarte. It crosses Wilson Avenue (Avenida Inca Garcilaso de la Vega) and Alfonso Ugarte, and it ends at Jirón Varela. The fourth block houses an Art Deco building that contains the Provincial Sub-Prefecture of Lima. At the Garcilaso de la Vega intersection are Clinica Internacional (since the 1990s) and Casa Matusita, a building famous in local legends as a haunted house.

History: The street dates from Lima’s early-20th-century westward expansion. The third block sits on the site of the old Lima Penitentiary, now the Lima Civic Center. From the late 1940s to the early 1990s, the U.S. Embassy stood at the Garcilaso de la Vega intersection before moving to Monterrico, after being targeted by the Shining Path and the MRTA.