Qosqo, meaning navel or bellybutton in Quechua, is located in a fertile valley that supported civilization before the Incas, but it is more closely associated with the organized society in which everyone had a role to play, and a function to perform. Ama Sua, Ama Quella, Ama Lulla was the greeting to visitors to the city, and exhorted them “Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t be lazy.” The results of their artisanry and building techniques are seen everywhere, and have outlasted numerous earthquakes.
Inca builders laid out the city in the form of a puma, with the fortress of Sacsayhuaman as the head, the plaza of Huacaypata as the belly, or navel, and the converging Huatanay and Tullumayo rivers as the tail.
The ancient plaza was the core of the suyos, the Four Regions of the Inca Empire reaching from Quito, Ecuador to northern Chile.

The city of Cuzco was designed by the 9th Inca King, Pachacuti Inca Yupanque or "Earthshaker", in the shape of a puma, a sacred beast to the Indians. The head of the puma is represented by the mighty fortress of Sacsahuaman, the heart by the main square of Huacaypata and the tail by the convergence of the Huatanay and Tullumayo rivers.

The main square of Cuzco, Huacaypata, has remained in the same location since the earliest days of the Incas. Before the arrival of the Spanish it was twice the size, covered with a fine gravel and had four main roads extending out to the four quarters, or "suyos", of the Empire.
The first Spanish visitors to Cuzco were overwhelmed by its feats of engineering and vast quantities of treasure. Many of the Inca buildings still have niches or holes that were originally used to fix solid plates of gold - these were later looted by the Spanish and melted down.

Many of the Spanish colonial buildings crumbled in earthquakes during the 20th century whilst the Inca walls stood firm. A visitor to Cuzco can see the ironic spectacle of baroque Spanish churches built on the solid foundations of Inca temples. The Inca Empire may not have survived the Spanish Conquest but many of its buildings have lasted well beyond the years of Spanish rule.