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Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel, located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru, on a 2,430-metre (7,970 ft) mountain ridge. It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District, above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco. The Urubamba River flows past it, cutting through the Cordillera and creating a canyon with a tropical mountain climate.

Often mistakenly referred to as the 'Lost City of the Incas', it is today the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438-1472), but became abandoned a century later at the time of the Spanish conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911.

Made up of more than 150 buildings ranging from baths and houses to temples and sanctuaries, the site stretches over an impressive 5-mile distance, featuring more than 3,000 stone steps that link its many different levels. Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls, and its three primary structures are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows.

Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of how they originally appeared, and today hundreds of thousands of people tramp through Machu Picchu every year, braving crowds and landslides to see the sun set over its towering stone monuments and marvel at the mysterious splendor of one of the world’s most famous manmade wonders.

Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historic Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, it was voted one of the New7Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.