Paiján is a city in the La Libertad region on the northern coast of Peru. It lies inland from the Pacific coast in the coastal desert of northern Peru, within a region whose archaeological record includes some of the earliest known human occupation in the country.
The area is best known for the Paiján culture, an archaeological culture that emerged on the northern coast of Peru between 13,000 and 10,000 calibrated years before present. It was first described by the Peruvian archaeologist Rafael Larco Hoyle in the 1940s, based on finds at the Pampa de los Fósiles site. Later research by the French archaeologist Claude Chauchat identified dozens of open-air sites associated with the culture, including camps, workshops and quarries.
These remains make the Paiján area significant for the study of early settlement on the Peruvian coast, and the culture that bears the city's name is its principal claim to wider recognition.