According to the Organic Law of Regional Governments, the regions () are, with the departments, the first-level administrative subdivisions of Peru. Since its 1821 independence, Peru had been divided into departments () but faced the problem of increasing centralization of political and economic power in its capital, Lima.
After several unsuccessful regionalization attempts, the national government decided to temporarily provide the departments (including the Constitutional Province of Callao) with regional governments until the conformation of regions according to the Organic Law of Regional Governments which says that two or more departments should merge to conform a region. This situation turned the departments into de facto regional government circumscriptions. The first regional governments were elected on November 20, 2002.
Under the new arrangement, the 24 departments plus the Callao Province are regional government circumscriptions each with a Regional Government. Lima Province, which has been excluded from this process and is not part of a regional government circumscription, has its government institution: the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima.
Unlike the previous system, the regional circumscriptions have an elected government and have a wide array of responsibilities within their jurisdiction. Under the 2002 Organic Law of Regional Governments (), there is an ongoing process of transfer of functions from the central government to the regions. A 2005 referendum for the merger of several departments failed to get the necessary electoral support.
Departments are subdivided into provinces and districts.
History
After declaring its independence in 1821, Peru was divided into departments (), which grew in number from eleven in 1822 to twenty-four in 1980:
Amazonas
Ancash
Apurímac
Arequipa
Ayacucho
Cajamarca
Cuzco
Huancavelica
Huánuco
Ica
Junín
La Libertad
Lambayeque
Lima
Loreto
Madre de Dios
Moquegua
Pasco
Piura
Puno
San Martin
Tacna
Tumbes
Ucayali
As political and economic power increasingly concentrated in Lima, the capital city, several administrations attempted to decentralize the country with little success. The 1979 Peruvian Constitution contained provisions for the decentralization of power through the creation of autonomous regions, but they were not implemented. During the later years of the 1985–1990 presidency of Alan García, the government faced the prospect of losing the 1990 presidential elections because of a widespread economic crisis and faltering public support. As a way of creating an alternative source of power, the regime established twelve autonomous regions on January 20, 1989, in the hope of winning some elections at this level. However, due to the haste of their creation, these regional governments were not provided with fiscal resources of their own, so they depended on the goodwill of the central government for funding.
The 1990 presidential elections were marked by the discredit of political parties as evidenced in the election of Alberto Fujimori, an independent candidate. Fujimori withheld financial transfers to regional governments and then, on December 29, 1992, replaced them with government-designated Transitory Councils of Regional Administration (). Having dissolved Congress in the 1992 Peruvian constitutional crisis, Fujimori called an election for a Constitutional Assembly which drafted the 1993 Constitution. This new text included provisions for the creation of regions with autonomous, elected governments, but they were not carried out. A framework law on decentralization () issued on January 30, 1998, confirmed the permanence of transitory councils, now under the supervision of the Ministry of the Presidency.
Fujimori was forced to resign in November 2000 under accusations of authoritarianism, corruption, and human rights violations. After an interim government led by Valentín Paniagua, Alejandro Toledo was elected president for the 2001-2006 period on a platform that included creating regional governments. The new administration laid out the legal framework for the new administrative subdivisions in the Decentralization Bases Law (), issued on July 17, 2002, and the Organic Law of Regional Governments () issued on November 19, 2002. New regional governments were elected on November 20, 2002, one in each of the former departments and the former Constitutional Province () of Callao. The province of Lima, containing the capital, was excluded from the process; thus, it is not part of any region.