LAND TENURE Private ownership (property of four main "predios": Mandorpampa, Q'ente, Torontoy and Santa Rita de Q'ente).

ALTITUDE Ranges from 1,800m to 3,800m

PHYSICAL FEATURES The site lies in the Selva Alta zone, and includes part of a highly dissected mountain massif of the high Andes plateau, which rises steeply from the Urubamba River valley. The area around the ruins of Macchu Picchu consists of many rocky pinnacles with exposures supporting thin soils, although the area also includes sites with complex systems of old Inca terraced land constructed to conserve the soils. The Urubamba alluvial basin is an almost continuous zone of arable and pastoral farming land. Geologically the area is very complex, being a combination of marine sedimentary rocks of the Cretaceous-Tertiary period and intrusive volcanic material, including lavas and granites. The sedimentary deposits include Ordovician schists, slates and quartzite. Streams and rivers feed the major Rio Urubamba valley system as well as a number of smaller valleys in the north such as that of Quillabamba (MAA, 1986).