Moyobamba (founded: Santiago de los Ocho Valleys of Moyobamba, July 25, 1540, by Juan Pérez de Guevara), is a city in northern Peru, capital of the homonymous province (province of Moyobamba) and the department of San Martín, located at an altitude of 860 masl on the western slope of the Andes mountain range, in the Alto Mayo valley, an area of Yungas. It is the first city founded by Spaniards in the Peruvian jungle. Its urban population and surroundings is 80 324 inhabitants approximately for 2018 as a province1
Moyobamba was a metropolis of different entrances from where missionaries, soldiers, merchants, founding populations in the Peruvian Amazon, imposing the Spanish civilization and spreading the European style, with a high dose of disrespect to the natural and fast and destructive usufruct of the goods. Aboriginal
The name of Santiago de los Ocho Valleys of Moyobamba, is due to the valleys that form the following tributaries of the Mayo River: Yuracyacu River Valley, Negro River Valley, Tónchima River Valley, Indoche River Valley, Rumiyacu River Valley , valley of the Gera river, Huascayacu river valley and Juningue river valley.
It also highlights the settlement of the department of Loreto and the other areas of the department of San Martin by the inhabitants of Moyobamba. The city many times in its history lived an imported development and in aspects ahead of Lima, such as the arrival of wireless telephones before conventional telephones, and the arrival of color television when in the rest of the country television was white and Black was a novelty.
Moyobamba is also known as “City of Orchids”, since in its outskirts there are more than 3,500 species of orchids, that is to say, 10% of the species described around the world, approximately. In fact, the beauty of these flowers, as well as their exoticism and also their important role within the ecological chain make orchids have become one of the most important sources of tourism in that area; that is why every year in Moyobamba the “Orchid Festival” is celebrated, normally at the end of October.