Coropuna, Stratovolcano in Arequipa, Peru.

Coropuna is a compound stratovolcano in the Cordillera Ampato, Arequipa Department, whose ice-covered summits rise to 6,377 m, making it Peru's third-highest mountain. It covers 240 km² and consists of about six coalesced cones and seven coulees built of ignimbrite and lava layers. Its ice cap, the most extensive in the tropical zone, feeds outlet glaciers; below 5,000 m lie pastures and farmland.

The Incas reached the summit first, leaving offerings and remains of a sanctuary that looters later dynamited, probably linked to a Capacocha rite. Hiram Bingham climbed the 6,445 m west summit in 1911, seeking archaeological traces and testing the belief that Coropuna was the continent's highest mountain. An Italian expedition reached the 6,232 m southeast summit in 1953, and a Peruvian team led by Pablo Masías Núñez del Prado climbed the west summit in October 1973.

In Quechua, coro may relate to Puquina coro, "round", and puna means "plateau"; the name is also read as Qoripuna, "Puna of Gold", or "golden mountain". The Inca called the mountain a huaca and made offerings of reciprocity to it; Garcilaso de la Vega and other chroniclers list it among the most important huacas of Condesuyo. A summit sanctuary with ceramics and a body, probably a Capacocha ritual, was destroyed by looters with dynamite. The mountain is still worshipped today.

Coropuna is reached by paved roads through the town of Andahua, either from Arequipa or via Aplao from the Pan-American Highway; roads also run along its northern and western sides. No one lives above 5,200 m, and the climb needs only high-mountain safety equipment, without technical difficulty. INGEMMET monitors the volcano and has published a hazard map, since volcanic activity combined with glacial effects has produced mudflows.

Sailors approaching Peru's coast long mistook Coropuna for the highest mountain in the continent because of its bulk and nearness to the sea. Hiram Bingham explored the volcano in 1911 partly to test that belief, and left a written record of his ascent of the 6,445 m west summit in the village of Pampacolca.