Cusco's name may mean rock of the owl
Cusco, in southeastern Peru near the Sacred Valley, sits about 3,400 metres up and had 428,450 residents in 2017, the largest city in the Peruvian Andes. Tradition says Manco Cápac founded it in the twelfth century as capital of a kingdom that became the Inca Empire.
Its indigenous name, Qusqu, was used in Southern Quechua but comes from the Aymara phrase qusqu wanka, rock of the owl. That ties it to the founding myth of the Ayar siblings, in which Ayar Awqa sprouted wings, flew to the future city and turned to stone to claim the land for his lineage. Spaniards wrote the name as Cuzco, close to how it sounded at the time. In 1976 the mayor ordered municipal publications to use Cusco, and in 1990 local authorities adopted Qosqo, though later administrations dropped it. English dictionaries still prefer Cuzco, and the airport code is CUZ.
The Killke people lived here from about 900 to 1200, and carbon dating shows they built the walled complex of Sacsayhuamán around 1100, which the Inca later enlarged. In 2008 archaeologists found a temple there with 11 rooms thought to have held idols and mummies, along with a road and aqueduct. Many believe Inca Cusco was laid out in the shape of a puma, a sacred animal, though how its huge stones were quarried and moved is still unknown. The city was split into upper and lower halves, each holding two of the empire's four quarters, with a road running from each quarter of the city to its province.
The Spanish refounded the city on 23 March 1534, building most of it on top of Inca monuments. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1983, and Peru's 1993 constitution names it the Historical Capital. Over 2 million visitors a year pass through on the way to sites such as Machu Picchu.
Its rainbow flag, introduced in 1973 for a radio station's anniversary, was adopted in 1978. The city anthem, written in 1944, was translated into Quechua in 1991.
Source: Cusco
