Huancapampa

Huancapampa lay in the highlands of northern Peru, in the country later known as Huancabamba. Together with Caxas and Ayabaca, it belonged to the lands of the Guayacundos before Inca expansion. The Inca organized the region into administrative divisions and established centres along the mountain roads. Caxas, to the north, combined local occupation with an Inca provincial centre, showing the integration of these high valleys into a wider empire.

In 1532, as Francisco Pizarro advanced toward Cajamarca, he heard that Atahualpa had taken Huancapampa and Caxas from the forces of Huáscar. The news came amid the struggle between the two Inca rulers, on the eve of the Spanish encounter with Atahualpa. The valleys of Huancabamba thus lay within both the northern Inca road system and the theatre of the empire's final civil war.