Qhapaq Ñan Program

From the mid-fifteenth century of our era, the Qhapaq Ñan or “Great Road” was the complex road system formally used by the Incas to promote the development of their multiethnic political project that has maintained a remarkable force as an articulating element of diverse Andean peoples located in the present countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. This road network was built on the roads and road systems of previous civilizations, which were integrated into a defined political project. The connection of these populations with this ancestral road network is not limited only to the memory of a glorious pre-Hispanic past but to an effective means to achieve points of encounter, exchange, and communication between regions and diverse geographies in every sense.

The Archaeological Qhapaq Ñan

Thanks to archaeological and historical studies, we now know that the road system of Qhapaq Ñan had its starting point in the place called by the Incas Haucaypata, where...