The Inca civilization built Machu Picchu in the Andes.
Machu Picchu is a fifteenth-century Inca citadel in southern Peru, high above the Urubamba Valley. Most historians associate its construction with the reign of Pachacuti, the Inca ruler who greatly expanded the empire during the fifteenth century.
The site contains temples, terraces, plazas and carefully fitted stone buildings. Its location and engineering allowed the Inca to manage steep slopes and heavy seasonal rainfall. The settlement was probably connected to royal, religious and ceremonial activities.
Machu Picchu was not known to most of the outside world before Hiram Bingham publicised it internationally in 1911, although local people knew of the ruins. It was never the capital of the Inca Empire; that role belonged to Cusco, farther southeast.