Puno is the capital of the department of Puno. It was founded with the name of "Villa Rica de San Carlos de Puno" in 1668, by the Viceroy Count of Lemos, to end with the problems of possession of the silver mines of Laicacota of the brothers Gaspar and José Salcedo. 

Lake port beside the Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. It have landscapes of indescribable beauty, it has been the origin and cradle of big pre-Hispanic civilizations as Tiahuanaco, Collas and Aymaras, and of the mythical legend of Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo who emerged of its waters and went to Cusco to found the capital of the Inca empire. 

The Uros, famous and ancestral town that live in floating artificial islands,  or the indigenous communities of Taquile and Amantani that maintain their customs and rites without changes in the course of the time, amid unique landscapes. 

Very near the city you will find interesting archaeological remains of Pre-Hispanic cultures, as the chullpas of Sillustani inside the Ecological Reserve of Umayo, Pucará, or old cities of Spanish foundation as Chucuito, Juli and Pomata that harbor jewels of the architecture and colonial art, expressed in their temples and churches that flourished as product of the fortune of the silver mines of this region and the Spanish conquest of the Paraguay and of the Mojos. 

Puno has been denominated the "Capital folklórica del Perú" (folkloric capital of Peru) by the wealth of its artistic and cultural expressions. Especially through the dance; there are registered more than 300 from the 1,500 existing in the national environment, autochthonous dances that reach their biggest manifestation in the celebrations of the Feast of the "Virgen de la Candelaria" and the Regional Competition of Autochthonous Dances. 

The native resident of Puno is of the ethnos Aimara (the 12.9% population of Peru); they have for language the Aymara. For the subsistence in height average of 4,000 meters above sea level (13,122 feet) and with a cold climate, they have achieved an excellent adaptation. The color of its skin is dark, high lung capacity and development of the thorax; they have two more litters of blood then the average, with high content of red globules, what grant them great physical resistance. 

Many of them are dedicated to the elaboration of beautiful crafts and fine fabrics in alpaca wool. 

In the plains and mountains of Puno it will be common to find clusters of llamas and alpacas, being the area of more intense development of this cattle raising, originating beautiful panoramas in places where trees and vegetation almost not exist.