Is one of the eight provinces of the Piura Region, in northwestern Peru. It borders Ecuador on the north and northeast, Huancabamba Province and Morropón Province on the south, and the Piura and Sullana provinces on the west. This province is located in the western Andes and its capital is the town of Ayabaca, which is the highest in the whole region.
The name Ayabaca, also written as Ayavaca, derives from two Quechua roots: AYA, related to death, but also to immortality; and HUACA connected to sanctuaries and sacred places. Some local monographs have limited its meaning to that of “grave and ancient tomb of the dead” (“tumba de muertos”), considering possible links between this designation and the findings of bones and primitive weapons near the zone where the Spaniards gathered the native population in 1571, when they founded the first "Pueblo de Indios de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Ayavaca" or "Ayavaca Vieja". Under this supposition, such bones and weapons would be the “remains of hordes fallen in combat against the expansionist advance of the Incas.”
One of Ayavaca's most important attractions is the Aypate Inca construction, at 49 km east of the province's capital, located on, or in front of an ancient pre Inca sanctuary. In 1996, the regional office of the National Institute of Culture gave to Aypate the recognition of "Archaeological Capital of Piura". The name of Aypate (Also Aypache or Allpachí), also identifies an important legendary figure considered a founding father in the history of this region. The legend describes the beginning of a golden age after a human triumph in understanding and conquering nature without harming it.
Other interesting testimonies of the old local culture exist in different places of the province, under the form of petroglyphs (El Toldo, Samanga), megalithic altars (Chocán, Montero), and remainders of the old QHAPAQ ÑAN or Inca road.
Ayavaca has also a multiplicity of landscapes that encompass zones of dry forest and areas of almost permanent humidity located in the mountain range, a region of páramos, lakes and humid forests that conform the main freshwater sources of all the Piura region. Some of these lakes are the Laguna Prieta, near Huamba and Samanga, the Lagunas Arrebiatadas, an assembly of lakes connected in descending levels, the Laguna del Cristal, El Cántaro and the lake of Santa Clara or Siete Poderes.
Likewise, in the large mountain area shared by the provinces of Ayavaca and Huancabamba, there is a great assembly of well known lakes locally known as The Huarinjas or Huaringas, one of them is the very important Laguna del Rey, (Lake of the King or Lake of the Inca King), the highest one of the sierra of Piura, in the Ayavaca district of Pacaipampa.
