p> At the start of this period, the urban area
was confined to a triangular area bounded by the city's historic centre, Callao
and Chorrillos; in the following decades settlements spread to the north,
beyond the Rímac River, to the east, along the Central Highway, and to the
south. The new migrants, at
first confined to slums in downtown Lima, led this expansion through
large-scale land invasions, which evolved into shanty towns, known as pueblos jóvenes
