Location: Center of Perú.
Area: 25,320 km2
Altitude:
Minimum: 256 m.a.s.l. (Puerto Bermudez)
Maximum: 4380 m.a.s.l. (Cajamarquilla)
Relief: Pasco has a varied relief that includes high plateaus and cold mountains and the high jungle towards the east. Its territory is marked by the presence of both flanks of the chain of the Andes, the Western Mountain chain and the Oriental one.
Its territory located on the limit with Lima is rough, because it corresponds to the eastern side of the Western Cordillera. To the western side, in the Andean sector occupied by punas or high plateaus, it becomes less rough. The Near-Jungle area is very abrupt with deep narow valleys confined by high-sloped hills. The High Jungle with its wide valleys is confined by hills of varied altitude and incline. On the banks of the rivers of the High Jungle and the Low Jungle there are stepped terraces where people have built homes and towns and are engaged in agriculture and cattle raising.
In Pasco there is a morphological formation called the "Nudo de Pasco", which is a center of separation of waters whose watersheds give raise to Huallaga, Mantaro and Pachitea rivers. Rivers crossing the department belong to the Amazon hydrographic system, the Marañón and Ucayali basins. The most important is the Huallaga river that sheds its waters into the Marañón river after going through the Huánuco, San Martín and Loreto departments.
The city of Cerro de Pasco, the department's capital, is located on the Bombón Plateau. This is a large plateau slightly waved that extents over into the Junín department.
The first inhabitants of the region were the Pumpos. When the Incas conquered the Pasco region they centered on the exploitation of the gold and silver mines. Among the Pumpos' settlements of those times there was one called Yauri near the Yauricocha lagoon. This population held its ground under the Inca domination and it is this settlement that eventually became the city of Cerro de Pasco.
The spanish population made a large mining camp. The ore was so abundant and so much of the metal was gathered for the Spanish Crown that Cerro de Pasco was given the tittle of "Wealthy Fortune".
In 1824, Bolívar went through Pasco with its army marching to meet Canterac in Junín. In 1841, during the temporary presidency of Manuel Meléndez, the missionary Manuel Plaza obtain an authorization to begin catechising thus clearing the way for christianity from Pasco to Pozuzo.
Cerro de Pasco holds the privilege of being the cradle of Daniel Alcides Carrión, the martir of Peruvian Medicine.
