India Cities Educational Geography Posters
for social studies classrooms and homeschoolers.

Agra is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Agra is best known as the site of the Taj Mahal, the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan.

Other UNESCO World Heritage sites in Agra are

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Ahmedabad, in the Indian state of Gujarat, is the seventh largest city and seventh largest metropolitan area of India, with a city population of approximately 4.0 million and metropolitan population of 5.4 million.

The city was founded in 1411, during the British colonial period it was known as the “Manchester of the East” for being a center of textile industry, and then as a leader in the Indian Independence movement. Today Ahmedabad is a center of culture and commerce.

Auroville is an “experimental” community, near Puducherry in South India.

Auroville, a project of Sri Aurobindo Society, was founded in 1968 with the “progress of humanity towards its splendid future by bringing together people of goodwill and aspiration for a better world.”

Bangalore, in south central India, is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka.

Bangalore is nicknamed the “Garden City” and is noted as the Silicon Valley of India because of its position as the nation's leading IT exporter.

Bhopal, located in central India, is called the “City of Lakes” for its numerous natural and artificial lakes.

Over the night of December 2-3, 1984 thousands of Bhopal's citizens died as a result of the worst industrial disaster in the history of industrialization when a Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide manufacturing plant leaked a mixture of deadly gases including methyl isocyanate. This has made Bhopal a center of protests and campaigns which have been joined by people from across the globe.

The port of Chennai, also known as Madras, is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal.

The word "madras” is also the name of a light weight cotton fabric that was originally exported from Madras, India.

Darjeeling, located is the Lower Himalayas of the Indian state of West Bengal, is noted for its tea industry and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world.

Delhi, on the banks of the River Yamuna in northern India, has been continueous occupied since the 6th century BC.

With a population of over 15.9 million residents (2007), Delhi is the second most populous city in India and the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population.

Goa, actually the smallest Indian state, located on the west coast of the subcontinent on the Arabian Sea (Indian Ocean), is a former Portuguese colony. It's largest city, Vasco da Gama, known as Vasco, is named after the explorer.

The Portuguese territory of Portuguese India existed for about 450 years, until it was annexed by India in 1961.

The ruins of an ancient Bronze Age fortified city are near the small town of Harappa in northeast Pakistan. (Editor note: Not located in India.)

The site, along with Mohenjo-daro, were the two greatest cities of the Indus River Valley Civilization.

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Hyderabad

Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, is a planned city, noted for its wide streets laid out grids according to Indian Vastu Shastra (Vedic Planning for the comfort and prosperity of the citizens).

It is also the site of one of five astronomical observatories, called Jantar Mantar.

Jaipur is known as the “Pink City”.

Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India, is in the heart of the Thar Desert. It is known as the “Golden City” for the color of the sandstone used in the fort and surrounding city.

Kolkata, known as the anglicised Calcutta until 2001, is the commerical, educational, and cultural center of eastern India and one of the largest urban agglomeration in the world.

Kolkata is located on the Ganges River Delta.

People associated with Kolkata: Sri Aurobindo, Satyendra Nath Bose, Julia Margaret Cameron, Rabindranath Tagore, William Makepeace Thackeray, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, 1950.

Leh, once the capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh, is now in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

For centuries Leh was a stopover on trade routes along the Indus Valley between Tibet to the east, Kashmir to the west and also between India and China. Today the Old Town is threaten by the increased rains caused by climate change.

Mumbai, the largest city in India and the second most populous city in the world (14 million), began as fishing villages on seven islands along the west coast of the subcontinent.

The name Mumbai is from the goddess Mumbadevi, and Aai, “mother”; the Portuguese and English called the city Bombay. The English controlled Bombay beginning in 1661 and made it the center of their authority by 1708.

Notable people associated with Mumbai include Rudyard Kipling, Ismail Merchant, Salman Rushdie.

Mysore

Ancient Pataliputra, present day Patna, India, was founded as a small fort near the River Ganges, and served as an administrative capital for many Indian dynasties.

Lord Buddha visited the city, then known as Pataligrama, shortly before his death; and at the time of Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century BCE, it was one of the world's largest cities.

Varanasi (also known as Benares), on the Ganges River in northeast India, is regarded as a holy city by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and probably the oldest in India.

Varanasi is referred to as “the city of temples”, “the city of lights”, and “the city of learning.”

As an industrial center Varanasi was famous for its muslin and silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture.

Notable people associated with Varanasi include Ravi Shankar, Premchand, Annie Besant.

“Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” ~ Mark Twain in Following the Equator