According to the researcher and historian of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Juan Luis Orrego Penagos, the origin of the name Surquillo comes from the viceregal era, when a community of indigenous people emerged in this place that bore similarities to the town of Santiago de Surco.

This is evidenced by the discovery of small pre-Inca ruins such as the Huaca La Merced (belonging to the Ichma culture), which dates back to approximately the Late Intermediate period.

[4] During the Conquest of Peru, the inhabitants of the area surrounding the La Merced huaca were possibly moved to the Surco reduction due to its proximity.

[2] Eventually, Surquillo (also known as 'Surco Chico') evolved as a marginalized neighborhood, populated mainly by people of limited resources, located on the route that connected Lima with San Miguel de Miraflores.

[2] During the War of the Pacific, President Nicolás de Piérola ordered the construction of a defense line made up of fortifications called 'redoubts' to defend the city of Lima from invading Chilean troops.

Among them, one was built in Surquillo called "Reducto N°5", which is currently located in the park of the same name, on Angamos Avenue, near the border with the San Borja district.

[5] After the land had been transferred to other owners for a long time, Tomás Marsano and other families acquired part of Surquillo to dedicate it to growing take-out bread products.

According to the former mayor of Miraflores, Eduardo Villena Rey, Tomás Marsano promised to implement the area with water, drainage, paving and sidewalks, but he failed to fulfill said contract.

Miraflores proposed providing basic services to the Surquillo neighborhood, but the residents refused because they believed it would exempt Tomás Marsano from his obligations as an urban developer.

[7] In the first years since its urbanization, the proliferation of narrow alleys and small country houses was generated, due to the typology of large lots for people with limited resources.

In the 1950s, the informal occupation of Casas Huertas occurred, which were originally agricultural fields that, eventually, the new owners converted into tenements for rent.

The sale of small plots of land and the alley-type urbanization without any property title led to the consolidation of the neighborhood as a "barriada."

[10] In June 1992, during the Era of Terrorism in Peru, Operation Huascaura took place, in which members of the GEIN captured Luis Alberto Arana Franco, known as "Sotil".

After two months of surveillance and monitoring, on September 12 at 5:30 p.m., GEIN agents broke into the building, thus capturing Abimael Guzmán, leader and founder of Sendero Luminoso, and other members of the terrorist organization.

[17][18][19] Likewise, the commercial sector has increased within the district, highlighting the inauguration of the Open Plaza Angamos shopping center in 2010.

Then, it also limits to the north, with the district of San Borja, through avenues José Gálvez Barrenechea, Miguel Iglesias and Angamos Este.

Afterwards, it borders to the south, with the Miraflores district through Tomás Marsano Avenue, and Alejandro Deustua and Juan José Calle streets.

[7][25][26] On the other hand, in 2023, the Municipality of Surquillo won a project to prioritize pedestrian and bicycle mobility through the implementation of superblocks, promoted by the Municipality of Lima and the World Bank, which would intervene in the quadrant between shreds Santa Rosa, El Carmen, José Manuel Iturregui and República de Panamá and Andrés Avelino Cáceres avenues, with the aim of recovering public spaces and promoting sustainable mobility.

Likewise, their housing complexes were generally designed for single people or newly married couples, for the minimum amount of square meters.

In Surquillo there are several places of interest, of which the following stand out: Since the beginning of the 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s, and to a greater extent today, there has been a considerable real estate boom within Surquillo, in which many residential real estate companies have invested in new residential building projects in several points of the district due to the modification of the urban and building parameters in the district.