SAN MARCOS OF LIMA, MAIN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF

Spanish Universidad Nacional Mayor De San Marcos De Lima, coeducational state-financed institution of higher learning situated at Lima, the capital of Peru. The university, the oldest in South America, was founded in 1551 by royal decree and confirmed by a papal bull of 1571. At the time the Peruvian republic was established (1824), it was closed, not to be reopened until 1861; in 1874 it became an autonomous institution. It was reorganized in 1946 and again in 1969, when the old organization by faculties was replaced by a full complement of modern academic programs. There are institutes of economic research, of pathology, of biochemistry and nutrition, of tropical medicine, of the biology of the Andes, and of natural resources.