Areferendum was held on 30 October 2005, in order to decide whether the department would merge with the departments ofIca andHuancavelica to form the new Ica-Ayacucho-Huancavelica Region, as part of thedecentralization process in Peru. The proposal failed and no merger was carried out.[citation needed]
The department is divided into 11 provinces (Spanish:provincias, singular:provincia), which are composed of 111 districts (distritos, singular:distrito).
According to the2007 Peru Census, the language learnt first by most of the residents wasQuechua (63.05%) followed bySpanish (36.57%). The Quechua variety spoken in Ayacucho isChanka Quechua. The following table shows the results concerning the language learnt first in the department by province:[3]
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