"Where the Inca said the moon was born, and feminine stillness still gathers over sacred water"
Isla Del Luna
Copacabana, La Paz, Bolivia
Isla de la Luna rises from Lake Titicaca at nearly four thousand metres, the place where Inca cosmology located the birth of the moon. The Iñaq Uyu ruins — a house for chosen women dedicated to the moon goddess — stand over older Tiwanaku foundations, layering more than a millennium of sacred intention. A small Aymara community still lives here, carrying forward practices of offering and reciprocity in one of the quietest inhabited places in the Andes.
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Quick Facts
Location
Copacabana, La Paz, Bolivia
Tradition
Site Type
Coordinates
-16.0375, -69.0692
Last Updated
Mar 10, 2026
Isla de la Luna has been a ceremonial site for over thirteen hundred years, spanning the Tiwanaku civilisation, the Inca empire, and the living Aymara community. The Inca constructed the Iñaq Uyu complex around 1450 CE as a residence and training centre for women dedicated to the moon goddess Mama Killa. The island's sacred status, however, predates the Inca by centuries — the Tiwanaku built a temple here around 650 CE. Today, approximately eighty Aymara families maintain spiritual practices rooted in Andean cosmology.
Origin Story
In the Inca creation narrative, Viracocha emerged from the depths of Lake Titicaca. He fashioned human beings from stone, then turned his attention to the sky. He commanded the sun to rise from Isla del Sol and the moon to rise from this island. With that double act of creation, the cosmic order was established: light and reflection, day and night, the masculine and feminine halves of existence set into complementary motion.
The island's name in Aymara and its Inca designation both refer to the moon. The name 'Koati,' found in older literature, persists in some sources, though its precise etymology is debated. What is not debated is the consistency of the island's identity across traditions and centuries: this is the moon's place.
Key Figures
Viracocha
Wiraqucha
deity
Creator god who emerged from Lake Titicaca and commanded the moon to rise from this island, establishing the cosmic order that governed Inca civilisation.
Mama Killa
deity
Moon goddess, wife of the sun god Inti, protector of women. The Iñaq Uyu complex was dedicated to her service, and the chosen women who lived here were her priestesses.
Tupac Yupanqui
Tupaq Inka Yupanki
historical
The Inca emperor who ordered the construction of the Iñaq Uyu complex around 1450 CE, establishing the island as a major ceremonial centre within the empire.
Charles Stanish
historical
American archaeologist who co-directed the Proyecto Tiksi Kjarka (1994–2004), the comprehensive survey and excavation that produced the definitive academic account of the Islands of the Sun and Moon.
Brian S. Bauer
historical
Co-director of the Proyecto Tiksi Kjarka and co-author of the UCLA Cotsen Institute monograph that documented the island's archaeological record across multiple civilisations.
Spiritual Lineage
The island's sacred lineage runs deeper than any single civilisation. The Tiwanaku — whose capital lay ninety kilometres to the southeast — recognised this place as sacred around 650 CE and built a temple here that endured for centuries. When the Inca expanded into the Lake Titicaca region in the mid-fifteenth century, they did not displace the earlier sacred geography but absorbed it, constructing their own complex over the Tiwanaku foundations. The Spanish conquest severed the Inca institutional presence, but the Aymara community maintained its relationship with the land. That relationship persists today — not as re-enactment but as living practice, carried forward by the families who have never left.
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