Inca Empire stretched along the Andes Mountains in South America from about 1400 CE to 1533 CE. Its capital city was Cusco, in present-day Peru. It became the largest empire in the Americas before European arrival.

The Inca built a network of roads over 40,000 kilometers long, connecting mountains, valleys, and cities. Stone structures such as Machu Picchu show precise building techniques. Instead of written records, they used quipu, a system of knotted strings.

The empire is studied through ruins, tools, and preserved sites. It ended after Spanish conquest in the 1500s.