Cusco Information

"The Archaeological Capital of America"; it constitutes the biggest tourist attractiveness in Peru, and the most visited one. Cusco, was the biggest city and capital of the Inka Empire “Tahuantisuyo” (that reach great part of Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile) and then taken by the Spanish conquerors; today it has an architecture that fuses the Inka with the Spanish style. Their town conserves with pride its customs and traditions. It is also the forced step to know the mystic and enigmatic sacred citadel of the Inka Machupicchu that the Spaniards never knew and was discovered by the occidental culture in 1911. Cusco, as well as Machupicchu, for its historical value, and for its beauty is considered Cultural World Heritage Sites. The Sacred Valley of the Inkas and beautiful places are waiting for you

Take some days to see Cusco

Cusco has a diversity of tourist services, a lot of hotels and hostels, as well as travel agencies and adventure sports, restaurants, handmade shopping centres, bars and all that you can imagine. The tourist industry influences the development of the products and services. Nowadays there is an adequate infrastructure to ensure that the huge number of visitors who come here each year. They remain satisfied and enjoy their trip. Here you will find geographic information, economic information, directory and others. The modern Cusco pulses to the rhythm of its man activity, the tourism.

Location:

Cusco is located in Huatanay River Valley, in the southeasts Andes of Peru, in the jurisdiction of province and region Cusco, its high is 3,399 m.s.n.m. (11151,44 feet above the level sea), it’s located at 13º30’45’’ south latitude and at 71º58’33’’ west longitude from Greenwich Meridian.

At north it borders on the jungle of Junín and Ucayali departments; at south, in the southwest area, it borders on Arequipa and Puno; at east, it borders on a huge part of the Amazonie and the jungle flats of Madre de Dios; and at west, it is united to Apurimac Mountains and Ayacucho Jungle.

Reference time:

When in Peru it’s 12:00, in Santiago and Caracas it’s 13:00; in Río de Janeiro and Buenos Aires it’s 14:00, at New York it’s 12:00 and in Tokyo it’s 02:00 of the following day.

The Peruvian hour is similar to the EST hour (Eastern Standard Time) in the United States and it’s located at 5 hours from GMT (Greenwich Meridian Time).

Altitude:

Cusco is approximately over 3,399 m.s.n.m. (11151,44 feet above the level sea) high, is for this reason that Cusco is considered one of the highest cities in all the world.

Climate:

The climate on April to October is very comfortable, warm and dry. The temperature in this season goes from 5.0º to 20º Celsius.

This rainy season starts on November and it lasts until May; at the beginnings of this season, the rain is light and as the season continues the rain becomes more intense during the months of January through March.

There isn’t too much uniformity between summer and winter. Normally in winter is cold at night and during the first hours in the morning the temperature raises until the noon. At sunny days the temperature reaches 20ºC.

We recommend to tourists, to take warm clothing and also rain gear to the rainy season.

Cusco, it’s under the influence of macro-climate of huge air masses that come from the southeast jungle, as well as the Peruvian-Bolivian table winds are colder and drier, just like the winds that come from Patagonia, going into the southeast area and in general, makes climate events to huge scale. In the other hand, the local winds that are made in its valleys and in its plains, have the function of distributing heat and humidity along the day.

The average temperature fluctuates between 10.3ºC and 13ºC (between 50.54º and 52.34º Fahrenheit); but these temperatures fluctuate according the zone.