Machupicchu or Machupicchu Pueblo, also known as Aguas Calientes, is a location in

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

situated in the

Cusco Region Cusco, also spelled Cuzco (; ), is a department and region in Peru and is the fourth-largest department in the country, after Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It borders the departments of Ucayali on the north; Madre de Dios and Puno ...

, Urubamba Province. It is the seat of

Machupicchu District Machupicchu (from Quechua Machu Pikchu, "old peak") is one of seven districts of the Urubamba Province in Peru. The village of Machupicchu is the seat or capital of the district. Geography The Urupampa and Willkapampa mountain ranges traver ...

. Machupicchu lies at the Vilcanota River. It is the closest access point to the historical site of

Machu Picchu Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain ridge at . Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of the Inca Empire. It is located in the ...

which is away or about a 90-minute walk. There are many hotels and restaurants for tourists, as well as natural hot baths which gave the town its colloquial Spanish name, Aguas Calientes or hot water. Like Machu Picchu, Aguas Calientes is not accessible by road, and the only way to reach Aguas Calientes is by train or by hiking. The village of Machupicchu did not exist until the railroad was built, as it was a center for construction workers. It took off after the railroad opened in 1931 and foreign tourists started arriving to visit the Machu Picchu ruins. Enterprising individuals set up businesses serving the tourists, primarily restaurants and small hotels. Those who could afford luxury stayed at the luxury hotel up by the ruins.

Origin of the city's name

The official name comes from

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several Indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, an Indigenous South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language ...

Machu Pikchu from ''machu'' old, old person, ''pikchu'' pyramid; mountain; or prominence with a broad base that ends in sharp peaks. The addition of "pueblo" comes from the Spanish word for town. It was formerly called Aguas Calientes meaning "hot waters" or "

hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

History

Settled by a few farm families in 1901, the settlement was transformed into a busy railway worker's camp called ''Maquinachayoq'' (from Quechua ''makina'' (a borrowing from Spanish ''máquina'', machine/locomotive/train, -plus the diminutive ''-cha'' suffix and ''-yuq'' possession

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

, i.e. "(place) with a little train", ''Makinachayuq'') during the construction of the railroad through there in the late 1920s. The town was the central hub for worker lodging and their equipment until the railway was completed in 1931.

Transport

Machupicchu serves as a terminal for the

PeruRail PeruRail is a railway operator providing tourist, freight, and charter services in southern Peru. It was founded in 1999 by two Peruvian entrepreneurs and the British company Sea Containers. The main line between the port of Matarani, Arequipa ...

and

Inca Rail Inca Rail S.A.C. is a tourist train operator established in 2007. Its main headquarters are located in Lima, but it operates exclusively on the Southern Oriente Section of the Southern Railroad located in the Cusco Region. The company operates b ...

passenger train service from

Cusco Cusco or Cuzco (; or , ) is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountain range and the Huatanay river. It is the capital of the eponymous Cusco Province, province and Cusco Region, department. The city was the cap ...

. Trains serve locals and tourists arriving from Cusco and

Ollantaytambo Ollantaytambo () is a town and an Inca archaeological site in southern Peru some by road northwest of the city of Cusco. It is located at an altitude of above sea level in the district of Ollantaytambo, province of Urubamba, Cusco region. D ...

to visit Machu Picchu. Avenue Pachacutec is the main and only thoroughfare of the town, connecting the baths to the town's main square.

Industry

The Central Machupicchu

Hydroelectric Plant Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and also mo ...

(''Hidroelectrica'') is nearby at the

Urubamba River The Urubamba River or Vilcamayo River (possibly from Quechua ''Willkamayu'', for "sacred river") is a river in Peru. Upstream it is called Vilcanota River (possibly from Aymara ''Willkanuta'', for "house of the sun"). Within the La Convención ...

. It generates about 90 MW for the regions of Cusco, Puno, and Apurímac . It was first constructed between 1958 and 1965 and expanded between 1981 and 1985. The plant was damaged by a landslide on 28 February 1998 and ceased operations until 13 July 2001.Central Hidroeléctrica Machupicchu
Empresa de Generación Eléctrica Machupicchu S.A.

Climate

Gallery

File:Urubamba river Aguas Calientes.jpg,

File:Aguas Calientes, Cuzco, Perú, 2015-07-30, DD 69.JPG, Train tracks bisect the town File:Machupicchu Village.jpg, Machupicchu Village Scene, March 2006 Aguas Calientes, Cuzco, Perú, 2015-07-30, DD 70.JPG, Statue of Inka Aguas Calientes, Cuzco, Perú, 2015-07-30, DD 67.JPG, Church Machu Picchu Aguas Calientes (Peru), interior of the church.jpg, Interior of the church File:PeruRail 291.jpg, Railbus Officials in Aguas Calientes. File:Machu Picchu, Peru - Laslovarga (262).jpg, Rio Aguas Calientes flowing through the town.

Twin towns

Haworth Haworth ( , , ) is a village in West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines south-west of Keighley, 8 miles (13 km) north of Halifax, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhop ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

* Otama village, Fukushima Prefecture,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

* Fukushima,

Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Medley Medley or Medleys may refer to: Sports *Medley swimming, races requiring multiple swimming styles * Medley relay races at track meets Music *Medley (music), multiple pieces strung together People *Medley (surname), list of people with this nam ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

* Tinúm,

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

References

External links

* * at cusco-peru.org * {{Authority control Populated places in the Department of Cusco Tourism in Peru