Cities in the Andes

The Andes run about 7,000 kilometres down the west of South America, through Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, and some of the highest cities on earth sit along them. Every piece we make is named for one of twenty towns and cities in Peru and Bolivia, the old heart of the Inca world: most of them up in the mountains, a few on the coast and in the Amazon that the Andes run down into. Each has its own page: what the place is, what it is known for, the textiles of the region, and the cap or bag that carries its name. Not a travel guide. A map of where the names come from.

The twenty at a glance

Peru, the highlands

• Cusco, the Inca capital and the rainbow weave
• Písac, terraces, the Sunday market, the fine stripe
• Urubamba, the Sacred Valley and the diamond weave
• Maras, the salt pans and the salt-pink stripe
• Puno, Lake Titicaca and the reed islands
• Huaraz, the Cordillera Blanca and the glacier teal
• Cajamarca, where the Inca fell, the earth stripe

Peru, the coast and the jungle

• Arequipa, the white city and the amber bag
• Nazca, the desert lines and the desert stripe
• Paracas, the oldest cloth in the Andes
• Callao, the port of Lima, the kids navy cap
• Tacna, the heroic city, black with an indigo stripe
• Iquitos, the Amazon city, forest green

Bolivia

• La Paz, the city in a bowl and the lake weave
• El Alto, the city on the rim, green and gold
• Copacabana, Titicaca and the sky weave
• Oruro, the carnival of the altiplano
• Potosí, the silver mountain and the night weave
• Sucre, the white capital and the Tarabuco weavers
• Cochabamba, the garden valley and the green bag

The highest cities in the Andes

Altitude shapes everything up here: the light, the cold, the colours people wear against both. Of our twenty, El Alto is the highest at about 4,150 metres, one of the highest large cities in the world, with Potosí close behind at about 4,090. Puno, Copacabana, Oruro and La Paz all sit between about 3,600 and 3,850 metres, on or near the altiplano, the high plain around Lake Titicaca. Cusco is at about 3,400. The great Andean capitals further north are lower: Quito at about 2,850 metres, Bogotá at about 2,640.

Capitals in the Andes

Bolivia has two. Sucre is the constitutional capital and the seat of the courts; La Paz is the seat of government. Peru's capital, Lima, is on the coast, but its port, Callao, is one of our twenty. Cusco was the capital of the Inca state, and Quito and Bogotá are the capitals of Ecuador and Colombia.

The cloth

The cloth families the cities are sorted into are on the weaves, and the symbols you will meet in them are the chakana, the Andean cross, and tocapu, the woven squares of the Inca. The pieces themselves: headwear and bags.

Questions

What are the main cities in the Andes?

The largest are Bogotá, Medellín and Cali in Colombia, Quito in Ecuador, and La Paz with El Alto in Bolivia. In Peru the best known are Arequipa and Cusco; in Bolivia, Cochabamba, Sucre, Oruro and Potosí. Our twenty are in Peru and Bolivia.

What is the highest city in the Andes?

Among large cities, El Alto in Bolivia, at about 4,150 metres. Smaller mining towns sit higher still: La Rinconada in Peru, at around 5,100 metres, is often called the highest permanent settlement in the world.

What was the capital of the Inca Empire?

Cusco, in the south of Peru. The Inca called their state Tawantinsuyu, the four parts together, and Cusco sat where the four parts met.

Why are your pieces named after cities?

Because our pattern is inspired by the textiles of these places, and a name is a way of crediting them. Each piece takes the name of a town connected to its pattern or its colour.