University Park, Urban park in historic center Lima, Peru

University Park is a rectangular public space at the crossing of Abancay and Nicolás de Piérola avenues in Lima's historic centre. It holds the Casona de San Marcos, the university's former seat and now a cultural centre, with the Panteón de los Próceres beside it. Bronze and marble monuments stand at its ends, among them the Torre Alemana clock tower.

The Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, considered the oldest in the Americas, moved into the Casona on these grounds in the mid-1870s, after the building had housed the Convictorio de San Carlos. The park itself was built in the early 1920s to a design by architect Enrique Bianchi, approved in 1919. San Marcos left in 1966 after earthquake damage, and the park was renovated in the 1980s and 1990s.

The name comes from the Casona de San Marcos, the university's former seat, now a cultural centre. The monuments mark specific people: Sebastián Lorente, rector of Guadalupe, in bronze and granite by José Luis F. Agurto (1924); Hipólito Unanue in Italian marble by Manuel Piqueras Cotolí (1931); and Bartolomé Herrera, seated in bronze and marble, donated by the German government in 1922.

The park sits at the corner of Abancay and Nicolás de Piérola avenues, so it is reached on foot from the surrounding historic centre streets. A perimeter fence built during the 1980s and 1990s renovations encloses the grounds, and two ornamental pools stand inside. Look for the Casona de San Marcos beside the park, now a cultural centre.

The Torre Alemana, a monumental clock donated by German residents for Peru's 1921 independence centenary, rings the first stanza of the national anthem at noon and again at six in the evening. The Bartolomé Herrera monument beside it, a seated bronze and marble figure, was a 1922 gift from the German government.