Historic centre of Cusco
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How it came to be
Cusco sits in a valley 3,400 metres up in the Peruvian Andes. Inca mythology credits its founding to Manco Cápac, but the town was of modest importance until the 15th century, when Inca power grew after the war against the Chancas. Under Pachacutec (1438–1471) and Tupac Yupanqui (1471–1493) the city was rebuilt and its two rivers channelled.
The centre held administrative and religious buildings and the homes of the Inca nobility, while satellite villages beyond handled farming, crafts and production. The first three Spaniards arrived in May 1533, Francisco Pizarro entered the city on 15 November 1533, and it was refounded as a Spanish town on 23 March 1534. The Spaniards kept the street plan but pulled down the main buildings and raised churches and mansions on their stone walls.
Work on the cathedral began in 1560 on the site of the palace of Viracocha, and the monastery of Santo Domingo was built over Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun. An earthquake in 1650 destroyed almost all the colonial buildings, and another on 21 May 1950 damaged more than a third of the city, but the Inca walls held and the walls of Coricancha were exposed. Cusco was inscribed in 1983.
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