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Machu Picchu is located 2,430 meters (7,970 ft) above the sea level. It was built around 1450 by the Inca Empire but was abandoned around 1570. The local people knew about the site but did not tell the Spaniards. Thus, the site remained intact and was not exposed to the outside world until the American historian Hiram Bingham found it in 1911. In 1983 Machu Picchu was selected by UNESCO to be a World Cultural Heritage Site and in 2007 a worldwide Internet poll voted it to be one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

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