This nineteenth-century map of Cuzco shows the city’s principal
monuments: Sacsahuaman at the northern end and residential
compounds and temples, including the Sun temple, in the central and
southern part. Squier, E. George. Peru: Incidents of Travel and
Exploration in the Land of the Incas. London: Macmillan, 1877.The ceremonial core of the city was quite small: just over a kilometer long and
about half a kilometer wide at its broadest point, embracing some 40 hectares, or
about 100 acres. Inca city planners earmarked some 12 outlying districts for
residents known as Incas by privilege and provincial lords and their families;
the latter were required to spend time in Cuzco, to be versed in Inca customs and
in Quechua, the lingua franca. These outlying districts extended for some 11
kilometers (7 miles) below and on hillsides surrounding the center. The city plan
embraced not only the ceremonial core and surrounding districts, but also
extended several kilometers beyond to include small agricultural estates, as well
as hamlets for laborers, agricultural terraces watered by irrigation canals, and a
dozen or so storage centers. The priest Cristóbal de Molina observed that the
city had more than “forty thousand citizens” and 200,000 if one included the
suburbs and outlying settlements. Though difficult to calculate, given the
destruction of the city since Colonial times, greater Inca Cuzco’s resident
population probably numbered around 100,000 people, making it
Tahuantinsuyu’s largest settlement.
Nevertheless, it was not a city in which ordinary, subject peoples could reside.
The center of Cuzco itself was sacred: those who entered had to carry a burden
as a sign of humility and respect and no one could enter or leave the city at night.
In the Chinchaysuyu quarter a gateway known as Huaca Puncu controlled those
who came into the city; no doubt similar gateways existed on the other main
roads leading into the city. Above all, Cuzco was the city of the Inca, his retinue
and court officials, including his wives and children; the Willac Umu, high priest
of the Sun; the panacas or lineages of past rulers and their attendant personnel;
the chosen women or acllacuna and the retainers, yanacuna; imperial officials
and quipucamayoc, who recorded the vital data of the empire on knotted-string
quipus; the sons and daughters of conquered provincial lords; and specialized
artisans who served the Inca.
Some chroniclers credit Cuzco’s design to the Inca ruler Pachacuti, noting that
he had the imperial capital built from the ground up, an effort that took 20 years.