City guide · Qosqo · Cusco

Cusco

Capital of the Inca Empire: Spanish churches built on Inca stone walls

Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0

Cusco lies in an Andean valley at about 3,400 m and is the starting point for Machu Picchu. Many of the old town's Spanish colonial churches and mansions stand directly on the Incas' perfectly fitted stone walls; the megalithic walls of Sacsayhuamán on the hill north of town are the most breathtaking work of Inca stonemasonry.

History

How the city came to be

According to Inca legend, the ninth Inca, Pachacuti, rebuilt Cusco, turning a sleepy city-state into the vast Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu); archaeological evidence suggests the city had already been growing slowly and organically before him. Around 1450 Machu Picchu was built as Pachacuti's estate. In May 1533 the first three Spaniards arrived in Cusco to collect treasure for Atahualpa's ransom, and the city later fell to the Spanish. The City of Cusco became a World Heritage Site in 1983. In 1990 the local government changed the official spelling to 'Qosqo', closer to Quechua, though later governments did not keep it.

15th centuryPachacuti made Cusco capital of the Inca Empire
c. 1450Machu Picchu was built
1533The first Spaniards arrived in Cusco
1911Bingham made Machu Picchu world-famous
1983The City of Cusco and Machu Picchu became World Heritage Sites

Stories

Stories of the city

History · Machu Picchu

The mountain estate of an Inca emperor

Machu Picchu was built around 1450; archaeologists generally believe it was a royal estate ordered by the Inca ruler Pachacuti after he conquered the Urubamba valley, though no contemporary written records confirm this. The Peruvian explorer Agustín Lizárraga had been there in the early 20th century, and the American historian Hiram Bingham's reports in 1911 made it world-famous. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1983.

Legend · Sacsayhuamán

The head of the puma city

According to Inca oral history recorded in Spanish chronicles, Pachacuti called Cusco the 'city of the lion' (usually understood as the puma): the meeting of two rivers was its tail, the great square and surrounding houses its body, but it lacked a head. His son Túpac Inca later decided to build a fortress on the heights north of the city as the finest head for this puma — Saksaywaman.

People