Vilcabamba, the Last Refuge of the Incas: Hiram Bingham's Chronicle of Its Discovery at Espiritu Pampa (1914)

Hiram Bingham (1875 – 1956) was an academic, explorer and politician from the United States. He made public the existence of the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Later, Bingham served as a member of the United States Senate.

Vilcabamba , Willkapampa or Espíritu Pampa was a city founded by Manco Inca in 1539 and was the capital of the Neo-Inca State, the last refuge of the Inca Empire until it fell to the Spaniards in 1572, signaling the end of Inca resistance to Spanish rule. The city was then destroyed and lost, and it is the fabled "Lost city of the Incas", a title frequently incorrectly applied to the more famous Machu Picchu.

In 1911, Hiram Bingham with his book Lost City of the Incas brought to public attention the site of the ruins of the city at the remote forest site then called Espíritu Pampa, 81 miiles west of Cuzco. Bingham, however, did not realize its significance and believed that Machu Picchu was the fabled "Vilcabamba", lost city and last refuge of the Incas.

This book originally published in 1914 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional imperfection from the original publication or from the reformatting.