Qusqu

The small chiefdom changed scale under Pachacuti, who by Inca tradition came to power around 1438 after beating back the Chancas, and who is said to have rebuilt Cuzco as the capital of Tawantinsuyu. Two rivers were channelled around the city, it was divided into upper Hanan and lower Hurin halves, and from each quarter a road ran out to the matching quarter of the empire. Provincial lords had to keep a house in Cuzco and live in it part of each year. In the civil war that followed the death of Huayna Capac the city sided with Huáscar, and Atahualpa's generals took it in 1532.

Francisco Pizarro entered Cuzco in November 1533 and refounded it as a Spanish town the following March, the Dominicans building on the ruins of the Qorikancha. In 1536 Manco Inca besieged the Spaniards for ten months but could not win the city back, and withdrew to Vilcabamba, where a small Inca state held out for another 36 years. Rebellion returned two centuries later: Túpac Amaru II, leader of the great rising against Spanish rule, was executed with his family in the city's main square in 1781.