In which country is Machu Picchu located?

Machu Picchu is located in Peru. The 15th-century Inca citadel stands in the Machupicchu District of Peru’s Cusco Region, high in the Andes above the Urubamba River.

The site sits at about 2,430 meters above sea level, roughly 80 kilometers northwest of Cusco. It was probably built around 1450 during the reign of the Inca emperor Pachacuti and may have served as a royal estate, although no surviving contemporary record definitively explains its original purpose.

Machu Picchu was abandoned during the 16th century, around the period of the Spanish conquest, but local people continued to know the site. Peruvian explorer Agustín Lizárraga reached it in 1902; American explorer Hiram Bingham publicized it internationally in 1911. Peru declared the surrounding area a Historic Sanctuary in 1981, and UNESCO listed Machu Picchu as a World Heritage Site in 1983.