13.4503°S, 76.1711°W.
La Centinela is a Chincha capital and later Inca provincial center on the south coast of Peru, near the modern town of Chincha Alta. The complex covers some 75 hectares and was the principal city of the Chincha kingdom — a wealthy maritime polity with a fleet of balsa-log seagoing rafts trading along the Pacific from northern Chile to Ecuador in the 15th century. The principal pyramid rises 18 metres in stepped terraces of adobe, with subsidiary mounds, plazas, and walled compounds extending across the surrounding plain. After Inca conquest under Topa Inca around 1470, the empire established a parallel administrative compound directly adjacent to the existing Chincha palace — physically expressing the dual rule that allowed the Chincha lords to retain local authority under Inca hegemony. The Inca-period addition uses fine ashlar in trapezoidal niches and doorways, contrasting with the pure adobe architecture of the Chincha core.
The two architectural traditions still abut, distinct in plan and material.