The origins of the Qhapaq Ñan (“great road” in the Quechua language of the Incas) can be traced to trails that formed as early as 1000 B.C. During their brief but glorious peak in the 15th century, the Incas developed the road into a transportation network serving some 40,000 people spread over thousands of miles. Today, the ancient road runs for thousands of miles, traversing vastly different terrain—from tropical rain forests and deserts to the snowy peaks of the Andes Mountains—and connecting Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. All six of these nations have now banded together to support the road’s potential designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

From 1438 to 1532, the mighty Incas ruled the largest pre-Columbian empire in South America from their capital in Cuzco, Peru. The Qhapaq Ñan helped unite Inca territory, linking a population of some 40,000 people spread along the Pacific coast and Andean highlands from the northern border of today’s Ecuador to the Maule River, now in central Chile. Messengers bore news in the form of knotted ropes (as the Incas had no written language) along the road, while traders transported goods such as fish, seashells, weapons, wood, cocoa and textiles as well as valuable metals like gold and copper. The Spanish conquistadors who arrived from the north in 1526 also traveled along the road. They used it to their advantage by driving the Incas into the mountains, completing their conquest by 1532.