The Titicaca National Reservation is located in the Puno Region, Peru, in the Puno and Huancané provinces. Its main purpose is to preserve the ecosystems and landscapes of the Titicaca lake and surrounding Central Andean wet puna ecoregion. The Central Andean wet puna is a montane grasslands and shrublands ecoregion in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. Lake Titicaca (Spanish: Lago Titicaca, Quechua: Titiqaqa Qucha) is a large, deep lake in the Andes on the border of Bolivia and Peru, often called the "highest navigable lake" in the world. By volume of water and by surface area, it is the largest lake in South America. Lake Maracaibo has a larger surface area, but it is a tidal bay, not a lake.Lake Titicaca has a surface elevation of 3,812 metres (12,507 ft). The "highest navigable lake" claim is generally considered to refer to commercial craft. For many years the largest vessel afloat on the lake was the 2,200-ton, 79-metre (259 ft) SS Ollanta. Today the largest vessel is most likely the similarly sized train barge/float Manco Capac, operated by PeruRail. Numerous smaller bodies of water around the world are at higher elevations. Other cultures that lived on Lake Titicaca prior to the arrival of the Incas. In 2000, a team of international archaeologists found the ruins of an underwater temple, thought to be between 1000 and 1500 years old, perhaps built by the Tiwanaku people. The ruins have been measured to be 200 meters by 50 meters (656.2 feet by 164 feet), almost twice the size of a normal football pitch.
