Situated 7,970 feet above sea level, Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel in the Cusco Region of Peru. . Built by the Incas around 1450 – before Columbus sailed -- but abandoned a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll. Built with polished dry-stone walls cut to fit together tightly without mortar, Machu Picchu remained largely unknown until an American historian named Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911.