Chinchaysuyu was the Northernmost sector of the Inca Empire, extending approximately over modern Northern Peru and Ecuador as far as Southern Columbia.

It covers very contrasting terrain. The Incas were essentially a mountain people, and much of their territory comprised the high Andean mountains. However, to the west is a desert coastal strip, one of the driest regions in the world, and to the east is jungle, the edge of the Amazon basin.

This is the area where the Inca Huayna Capac, the father of Atahualpa and Huascar, was born and died.

But Incas had only conquered these lands for 50-150 years, and there were many different tribes and cultures over the preceding centuries, including:

At its height it extended from Cajamarca in the north to Ica in the south

They built massive truncated pyramid temples with internal galleries and staircases and decorated with stone carving.

Chavin de Huantar was probably the principal temple and its remains are still standing

A culture of the desert valleys of the northern coastal strip, they were experts in irrigation. They made exquisite ceramics such as lifelike portrait vases, and also pots with freizes of rituals.

Huaca de la Luna is an adobe temple in the Moche Valley with extensive mural decoration.

At Sipan royal tombs have been discovered with fantastic gold ornaments.

Followed the Moche in the Northen valleys. They built huge adobe pyramidal structures and were prolific metal workers

Batan Grande - hundreds of graves have yielded most of the contents of the Gold Museum in Lima

Tucume - vast city of pyramids and enclosures

Originating in the Moche Valley, conquered areas along the coastal strip from present Ecuadorial border almost to Lima. Chanchan is the largest adobe city in the world. The centre comprises walled royal/ religious complexes with relief friezes, particularly depicting fish and birds.

Known as the “The Cloud People” as they lived in an area of cloud forest on the western side of the Andes between the Marañon and Huallabamba rivers.

They lived in round stone houses, and built inaccessible structures in cliff faces for their mummified dead.

Kuelap is a huge citadel built on a high ridge.

Cajamarca was a favourite city of the Inca Atahualpa. At that time it was a favourite city of the Incas, but there had been thriving communities for centuries before this.

These were the main tribes in South and north of present Ecuador. Atahualpa’s mother is thought to have been Quiteña, and his bodyguards were Cañari.