After the Inca emerged as an imperial power, the ruler Pachacuti is credited with comprehensively replanning Cusco around the mid-15th century as the ceremonial and administrative heart of Tawantinsuyu. The city was rebuilt in fine ashlar masonry, organised into upper and lower moieties and quartered to mirror the empire's four parts (suyu) that radiated from its central plaza. Sacred sight-lines (ceques) and the great temple of Coricancha tied the urban plan to landscape and cosmos. From Cusco the Qhapaq Ñan and the four suyu were measured out.
It is a documented act of imperial planned city-making, a capital deliberately designed as a model of the cosmos and of the empire's territorial structure. Cusco became the template node from which Andean state space was organised.