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Peru's Machu Picchu named for top National Geographic travel award

Xinhua, November 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Incan site of Machu Picchu has been nominated for the Overseas Attraction prize in the National Geographic Traveller Reader Awards, Peru's Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Magali Silva, said Wednesday.

The Grand Canyon in the United States and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia were also on the nomination list.

The winner will be decided by readers of readers of National Geographic ahead of an awards ceremony in London in late November, Silva said.

The minister said that the Inca citadel has become one of the world's most treasured architectural jewels and the nomination can be added to a long list of other prizes it has won in recent years.

According to Silva, the government is currently engaged in a program to restore and preserve the site, by carrying out maintenance on staircases, platforms and load-bearing walls across the Machu Picchu complex.

Machu Picchu is situated in the southern region of Cusco, at an altitude of 2,430 meters. It has become an icon of Peru and of the Inca civilization, which once spread across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru as well as parts of Argentina and Chile.

The city was named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 which, along with other international awards, helped make Machu Picchu a must-see tourism destination. Endite