Its capital Chan Chan, located in the once fertile river valley of Moche or Santa Catalina, was the largest earthen architecture city in pre-Columbian America. The Outstanding Universal Value of Chan Chan resides in the extensive, hierarchically planned remains of this huge city, including remnants of the industrial, agricultural and water management systems that sustained it. The Moche and Chicama rivers once supplied an intricate irrigation system via an approximately 80 kilometre long canal, sustaining the region around Chan Chan during the height of the Chimu civilisation. Protection and management requirementsThe Ministry of Culture in Peru (MC), through its decentralized office in La Libertad, is the main agency charged with conserving and defending Chan Chan. The vision for Chan Chan is that it maintains its status as a cultural symbol for Peru that links the past to the present and plays an essential role in the human development of the region and the country.