He determined from his findings that the peoples here were a highly evolved cultural group, as there was evidence of primitive villages on the coast of Paita like Colan, Tayta, and Amotape from up to 9,000 years ago.

Paita was the port for Peru and the end terminus of the Manila Galleons connecting Latin-America with Asia.

[4] So many American vessels called that in 1833 the United States government decided to establish a consulate at Paita.

The money they injected into the local economy provided substantial economic benefits to the town and hinterlands, and this continued till American whaling visits began to taper off in the 1860s.

In 1875, a railway line of 97 km length was completed from Piura to Paita, but it was destroyed in the war with Chile from 1879 to 1883 and reconstructed in 1884.

[citation needed] The Golden Ocean by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1954 then again in 1996, mentions the successful attack of Anson's squadron at Paita on his voyage around the world, taking a prize of merchant's gold, silver, and trade goods valued at 30,000 British pounds.

In the 1947 film Dark Passage, Humphrey Bogart's character, falsely blamed for three murders, flees to Paita, with hopes of linking up with a love interest.