Landmark South America
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is an old stone town high in the mountains of Peru. The Inca people built it long ago. Steps and gardens climb up the steep slopes.
Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca town on a ridge high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Its stone buildings fit together without mortar, and farm terraces step down the slopes. It was left empty in the 1500s and became known to the outside world in 1911.
Built in the mid-15th century, probably as a royal estate of the Inca ruler Pachacuti, Machu Picchu's roughly 200 structures stand on a ridge more than 2,400 m above sea level. UNESCO inscribed the Historic Sanctuary in 1983 for both its culture and its nature.
Photo: Martin St-Amant (S23678), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is in Peru, in South America.
It sits on top of a mountain ridge, very high up. Big green peaks stand all around it. The houses and walls are made of stone.
Machu Picchu sits on a narrow ridge between two sharp peaks in the Andes Mountains of Peru, high above the Urubamba River. It is about 80 kilometers northwest of the city of Cusco, which was the Inca capital.
The Inca built it in the 1400s. Its stone houses, plazas and stairways sit among steep green mountains, where the Andes meet the Amazon Basin. UNESCO says it stands 2,430 meters above sea level. In 1983 it became a World Heritage Site, both for what people built and for the wild nature around it.
Machu Picchu stands in a saddle between the peaks of Machu Picchu ("Old Peak") and Huayna Picchu ("New Peak") in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba, above the Urubamba valley, about 80 km northwest of Cusco. UNESCO gives its height as 2,430 m above sea level (Britannica gives 2,350 m) and describes it as the most significant tangible legacy of the Inca civilization.
The Historic Sanctuary is a mixed World Heritage property of 32,592 hectares, inscribed in 1983 for both cultural and natural values: it spans the transition from high Andean grasslands to cloud forest and lowland forest, a region of rich biodiversity with many species found nowhere else. Britannica notes it is one of the few major pre-Columbian sites found nearly intact.
- Where
- Andes Mountains, Peru, about 80 km northwest of Cusco
- Height above sea level
- 2,430 m
- Built
- 15th century
- World Heritage Site
- since 1983, for culture and nature
An Inca royal retreat
Long ago, the Inca people ruled a big empire in the mountains.
They probably built Machu Picchu for their ruler. Later, people left it. Plants grew over it. Many years later, visitors from far away came to see it.
Machu Picchu was built around 1450, in the time of the great Inca ruler Pachacuti. Experts think it was a royal retreat, a special home for the ruler and important people, but its exact purpose is still not known. Only about 500 to 750 people lived there.
In the 1500s, after Spanish invaders conquered the Inca Empire, Machu Picchu was left empty. Local farmers knew about it, but the outside world did not. In 1911, a local man, Melchor Arteaga, led the American professor Hiram Bingham to the ruins, and news of Machu Picchu spread around the world.
Britannica dates the buildings to the mid-15th to the early or mid-16th century and says the construction style and other evidence point to a palace complex of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (reigned c. 1438 to 1471); research by John Rowe, Richard Burger and Lucy Salazar-Burger, reported by National Geographic, supports a royal retreat. Brian Bauer estimates it housed only about 500 to 750 people. Why it was abandoned is unknown; lack of water may have been a factor.
UNESCO records that it was abandoned when the Spaniards conquered the Inca Empire in the 16th century and made known to the outside world in 1911. Hiram Bingham of Yale was led there by Melchor Arteaga, a Quechua-speaking resident; some terraces were still farmed by local people. Bingham wrongly identified it as Vilcabamba, the "lost city of the Incas," which was later identified as Espíritu Pampa.
Built on a mountain
Inca builders shaped big stones by hand.
They fitted the stones together so tightly that a knife cannot slip between some of them. They did not use any cement. They built steps called terraces into the steep hills to grow food.
The Inca built Machu Picchu without mortar (the cement that usually holds stones together), without metal tools and without wheels. Builders shaped white granite blocks so that they fit together tightly, so tightly that a knife blade cannot slide between some of them.
They also carved the mountain itself. Thousands of steps, some cut right into the rock, link the plazas, houses and terraces. The terraces, like giant stairs, held soil for farming and were once watered by an aqueduct, a channel that carried water.
National Geographic describes Machu Picchu as built without mortar, metal tools or the wheel, its stones fitted so tightly that a knife blade cannot pass between them. UNESCO calls the working of the mountain a gigantic effort, as if the city were an extension of nature, with giant walls, terraces and ramps that seem cut from the rock escarpments.
Most structures are white granite, and Britannica notes that few have stonework as refined as Cusco's. Walkways and thousands of steps, of stone blocks and of footholds carved into the bedrock, connect the plazas, residential areas, terraces, cemetery and main buildings. Dozens of stepped agricultural terraces, once watered by an aqueduct system, surround the southern, eastern and western sides. UNESCO describes a rigorous plan dividing the city into lower and upper parts, separating farming from residential areas, with a large square between them.
Plazas, terraces and windows
In the middle of Machu Picchu is a big, flat, grassy square.
Stone houses stand around it. One building has three big windows in a row. Long stone steps climb up and down everywhere.
About 200 stone structures stand on the ridge. The Main Plaza, a wide grassy square, divides the town: farming areas on one side, homes and other buildings on the other.
One famous building, the Temple of the Three Windows, has three large windows shaped like trapezoids. Near the plaza stands a stone pillar carved from a single piece of rock, about 1.8 meters tall. Machu Picchu has only one formal entrance, which leads to the Inca Trail, an old stone footpath through the mountains.
UNESCO describes about 200 structures forming a religious, ceremonial, astronomical and agricultural center; many questions remain unresolved, including its role in Inca astronomy and plant domestication. The Main Plaza lies at the north-central end. Britannica describes the Temple of the Three Windows, a hall 10.6 m by 4.2 m with three trapezoidal windows, the largest known in Inca architecture, in a wall of polygonal stones; the Intihuatana, a ceremonial sundial whose pillar and pedestal were carved as one unit 1.8 m tall; the bi-level, finely built Princess's Palace; and the Palace of the Inca, with niched walls around a courtyard.
The only formal entrance, at the southeastern end, leads to the Inca Trail, part of a network of forts, inns and signal towers along the Inca highway. A rope bridge, the Inca Bridge, lies along another path.
- Structures
- about 200
- Temple of the Three Windows
- 10.6 m long, 4.2 m wide
- Intihuatana stone
- 1.8 m tall, carved as one piece
- Protected area
- 32,592 hectares
Visiting and protecting Machu Picchu
Many people want to visit Machu Picchu.
So only a set number can go in each day. Some visitors walk there for days on the old Inca Trail. Others ride a train and then go up a winding road.
UNESCO calls Machu Picchu Peru's main tourist destination, and so many visitors can harm it. Peru's Ministry of Culture lets in at most 4,500 people a day in the quieter season and 5,600 a day in the busy season (2025).
Most visitors take a train from Cusco and then travel up a zigzag road. Some hike the Inca Trail, a stone path with thousands of steps, which usually takes three to six days.
UNESCO calls Machu Picchu Peru's primary domestic and international tourist destination and warns that tourism is a double-edged sword, bringing income but also cultural and ecological impacts; it lists concerns such as logging, poor waste management, poaching and pollution of the Urubamba. In 2025 the Ministry of Culture kept the daily cap at 4,500 visitors in the low season and 5,600 in the high season, Andina reported, pending a new carrying-capacity study due in 2026.
Most visitors arrive by narrow-gauge railway and a serpentine road climbing nearly 500 m from the valley; others hike the Inca Trail from the "km 88" stop in three to six days, between about 2,600 and 4,200 m. A forest fire damaged the Inca Bridge and other areas in 1997, and restoration began immediately.
Amazing facts
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Some stones fit so well that a knife cannot slip between them.
Machu Picchu's builders used no mortar, yet some stones fit so tightly that a knife blade cannot pass between them.
Built without mortar, metal tools or the wheel, the walls are fitted so closely that not even a knife's blade fits between some stones.
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Only about 500 to 750 people lived there.
Machu Picchu was small for an Inca town: experts think only about 500 to 750 people lived there.
Brian Bauer of the University of Illinois at Chicago estimates the site maintained only about 500 to 750 people.
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Farmers were still using some of the terraces in 1911.
When Hiram Bingham arrived in 1911, local farmers were still growing crops on some of the old Inca terraces.
Some of the terraces were still being worked by local groups when Bingham arrived in 1911.
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Machu Picchu is protected for its plants and animals too.
UNESCO protects Machu Picchu for both its buildings and its nature, including many plants and animals found nowhere else.
The Historic Sanctuary is a mixed property, listed under cultural criteria (i) and (iii) and natural criteria (vii) and (ix).
Words to know
- terrace
- a flat step cut into a hillside, used for farming
- mortar
- a paste, like cement, that holds bricks or stones together
- granite
- a very hard, speckled rock
- plaza
- a large open square in a town
- citadel
- a strong, important group of buildings on high ground
- archaeologist
- a scientist who learns about the past by studying what people left behind
Discovery challenge
-
Which people built Machu Picchu?
Which people built Machu Picchu in the 1400s?
Which civilization built Machu Picchu, probably for the ruler Pachacuti?
- The Inca
- The Romans
- The Vikings
Show the answer
The Inca
The Inca! They lived in the mountains of South America.
The Inca built Machu Picchu around 1450, high in the Andes of Peru.
The Inca; its style and other evidence point to a palace complex of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui.
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What did the builders NOT use between the stones?
What did the Inca builders NOT use to hold the stones together?
Which binding material is absent from Machu Picchu's walls?
- Mortar
- Stone
- Granite
Show the answer
Mortar
Mortar! They used no mortar, a kind of cement. The stones fit like a puzzle.
They used no mortar. They shaped the stones so they fit tightly on their own.
No mortar: the granite blocks are fitted so tightly that a knife blade cannot pass between some of them.
-
What are the big steps on the hills for?
What were Machu Picchu's terraces used for?
What was the main purpose of the stepped terraces around the site?
- Farming
- Swimming
- Racing
Show the answer
Farming
Growing food! The flat steps held soil for plants.
The terraces were flat fields on the steep slopes, used for farming and once watered by an aqueduct.
Agricultural terraces, formerly watered by an aqueduct system; some were still farmed in 1911.
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Which country is Machu Picchu in?
In which country is Machu Picchu?
In which country's Andes does the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu lie?
- Peru
- Mexico
- Egypt
Show the answer
Peru
Peru, in South America!
Machu Picchu is in Peru, about 80 kilometers northwest of Cusco.
Peru: the sanctuary spans 32,592 hectares of the Cordillera de Vilcabamba above the Urubamba.
Nearby places
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Natural wonder
Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca lies 3,810 meters above sea level in the Andes of South America, on the border between Peru and Bolivia. Britannica calls it the world's highest lake that large ships can sail on. Some people still live on floating islands made of totora reeds, and a big, wrinkly frog lives in its water and nowhere else.
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Salar de Uyuni
Salar de Uyuni is a giant salt flat high in the Andes of Bolivia. It covers 10,582 square kilometers and was left behind when ancient lakes dried up. NASA calls it the largest salt flat in the world.
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Natural wonder
Amazon River
The Amazon River flows from tiny streams in the Andes Mountains of Peru across Colombia and Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean. NASA calls it the largest river in the world: about 219,000 cubic meters of water pour into the ocean every second, nearly a fifth of all the water that rivers carry to the oceans.
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Natural wonder
Andes
The Andes run down the whole western side of South America, from the Caribbean coast to the continent's southern tip, through seven countries. Britannica measures them at about 8,900 kilometers, and their highest peak, Aconcagua, rises to 6,959 meters. They are still growing as one plate of Earth's crust slides under another, which is why the Andes have so many volcanoes and earthquakes.
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Natural wonder
Atacama Desert
The Atacama is a cool desert in northern Chile, squeezed between the Pacific coast and the Andes mountains, about 1,000 to 1,100 kilometers long. It is one of the driest places on Earth: the city of Arica, on its coast, averages less than 1 millimeter of rain a year. Its dry, clear air makes it a top place for giant telescopes.
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Pantanal
The Pantanal is one of the world's largest freshwater wetlands, mostly in Brazil and reaching into Bolivia and Paraguay. Each rainy season its rivers overflow and flood the lowlands, making shallow lakes and marshes; in the dry season the water slowly drains away. This rhythm feeds an amazing number of animals, from jaguars and giant otters to about 600 kinds of birds.
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Amazon rainforest
The Amazon rainforest covers about 6 million square kilometers around the Amazon River and its branches in northern South America, and about 60 percent of it is in Brazil. Britannica calls it the world's richest and most varied home for living things, with millions of kinds of insects, plants and animals.
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City
Bogotá
Bogotá is the capital and largest city of Colombia, built on a high plain in the Andes, 2,625 meters above sea level. Founded by the Spanish in 1538 on land of the Muisca people, it is home to about 8 million people (2024) and a famous museum of ancient gold.
Experiments to try
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Country
Peru
Peru is a country on the Pacific coast of South America. It has a dry desert coast, the high Andes mountains and the Amazon rainforest, and about 34 million people lived there in 2025, many of them in the capital, Lima.
- Watch Geography What is a World Heritage Site? World Heritage Sites are places so important that they belong, in a way, to everyone. Under a 1972 agreement, countries nominate their most outstanding places, experts check them, and a UNESCO committee decides. By 2026 the list held 1,273 sites: cultural places like the Taj Mahal, natural places like the Galápagos, and mixed ones like Machu Picchu.
- Watch Try it What If? Lab What if buildings had different foundations? A building's whole weight presses down through its foundation onto the ground. A wide foundation spreads that weight out, like snowshoes on snow. In our model, a 200-tonne building on sand is safe on a 40-square-meter footing. Shrink the footing to 8 square meters and it presses five times harder, more than the sand can take, so the building would sink and could crack or tilt.
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Natural wonder
Andes
The Andes run down the whole western side of South America, from the Caribbean coast to the continent's southern tip, through seven countries. Britannica measures them at about 8,900 kilometers, and their highest peak, Aconcagua, rises to 6,959 meters. They are still growing as one plate of Earth's crust slides under another, which is why the Andes have so many volcanoes and earthquakes.
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Landmark
Christ the Redeemer
Christ the Redeemer is a 30-meter statue of Jesus on top of Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Built from 1926 to 1931 out of reinforced concrete, it is covered in thousands of small soapstone triangles, and it stands on a pedestal 8 meters high.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Locate Machu Picchu in the Andes of Peru and describe its mountain setting.
- Explain how Inca builders fitted stones without mortar and farmed steep slopes with terraces.
- Describe what is known, and what is still unknown, about why Machu Picchu was built and abandoned.
- Discuss why visitor numbers are limited at fragile places.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why do you think the Inca built a town on such a steep mountain ridge?
- How could farmers grow food on a hillside? Why do flat terraces help?
- Machu Picchu lets in only a set number of people each day. Is that fair? Why might it be needed?
Try at home or in class
- Build a dry stone wall from sugar cubes or small blocks without glue, and see how fitting the pieces carefully makes it stronger.
- Make a hill of damp sand on a tray, cut steps into one side, then pour water gently on both sides to see how terraces slow the water.
Key vocabulary: terrace, mortar, granite, plaza, citadel, archaeologist
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- UNESCO World Heritage List , UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Linked as a reference; site facts come from Wikidata)
- Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- City of Cuzco , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Machu Picchu , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Machu Picchu 101 , National Geographic
- Machu Picchu: Perú mantendrá el aforo máximo de 5,600 personas al día en la ciudadela inca , Andina, Peru's state news agency
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 24, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.