1122 PERU (Puno) - Lake Titicaca (UNESCO WHS - Tentative List) and its floating islands

Located in the Andes, on the border of Peru and Bolivia, Titicaca (Titiqaqa in Quechua) covers 8,300 square km and is the largest lake in South America, and also the highest navigable lake in the world, with a surface elevation of 3,812m. Its waters are limpid and only slightly brackish, and the surface temperatures average is 14°C. The lake averages between 140 and 180m in depth, reaching its greatest recorded depth of 280 m off Isla Soto in the lake's northeast corner. It holds large populations of water birds and was designated as a Ramsar Site on August 26, 1998. Several threatened species are largely or entirely restricted to the lake. In addition, approximately 90% of the fish species in the basin are endemic.

1107 PERU (Cusco) - A Quechua mother with her children on the Sacred Valley of the Incas

As it is known, the territory of present Peru was the heart of the Inca Empire, the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. It had a short life of only about 100 years, but at peak it included a population estimated between 4 and 37 million people, from 100 different cultures and speaking at least 20 languages. Since 1438 the official language of the empire was Quechua. After the Spanish Conquest, the local population decreased to around 600,000 in 1620, and Spaniards and Africans arrived in large numbers. Gradual European immigration followed independence, and many Chinese arrived in the 1850s, replacing slave workers. As result, today Peru is a multiethnic country, but despite all these, 46% of the population is Amerindian. The two major indigenous ethnic groups are the Quechuas (belonging to various cultural subgroups), followed by the Aymaras. A large proportion of the indigenous population who live in the Andean highlands still speak Quechua or Aymara, and have vibrant cultural traditions, some of which were part of the Inca Empire.