Hatun Kanar

Hatun Kañar is the highland country of the Cañari, home to the great stone complex of Ingapirca. Standing above a cold Andean basin, its best-known structure is an oval platform of carefully fitted masonry, often called the Temple of the Sun. Nearby are plazas, rooms and a Cañari burial marked by a standing stone, evidence of an older sacred landscape.

The Incas built at Ingapirca after extending their authority into Cañari lands. They incorporated the place into the Qhapaq Ñan, the great Andean road network, and gave it religious, political and administrative importance. The finely worked platform and trapezoidal doorways reveal the imperial building tradition, while the earlier burial and local remains recall the Cañari communities who inhabited the region before the Inca arrival. Together the structures preserve the meeting of two Andean traditions on a high plateau.

The later city of Azogues lies here.