It was discovered on 1 December 1975, by Chilean astronomers Carlos Torres and Sergio Barros at the Cerro El Roble Station northwest of Santiago de Chile.

[13] This minor planet was named after Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia (1502–1553), who conquered Chile with a small expedition corps after he served under Francisco Pizarro in Peru.

[14] In August 2016, the so-far best-rated rotational lightcurve of Valdivia was obtained by the Spanish amateur astronomer group OBAS.

[10] Previously, in May 2003, photometric observations made by Donald P. Pray at the Carbuncle Hill Observatory (912) near Providence, Rhode Island, gave a synodic period of 4.096 hours and an amplitude of 0.40 in magnitude (U=2+).

[11] In 2016, an international study modeled a lightcurve with a concurring period of 4.09668±0.00005 hours and found two spin axes of (269.0°, −31.0°) and (103.0°, −59.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β) (U=n.a.).