India: Notable Places / Cities / Colonies

Pataliputra (All Facts)

• Capital of the Mauryan Empire

• Extended for 10 miles along the Ganges River, surrounded by a massive palisade with 64 gates and 570 large towers and broad moat

• Contained a magnificent royal palace built of timber and stone, with richly gilded ornamentation

• Featured a well-organized standing army that included a large number of war elephants

Thanjavur (All Facts)

• Capital of the Chola Empire

Khajuraho (All Facts)

• Capital of the Chandela Dynasty

Fatehpur Sikri (All Facts)

• City built during the reign of Akbar of the Mughal Empire

• City which was built on a hill, with its palace and mosque crowning its summit

• City whose architecture was stylistically and wholly Indian, drawing on both Hindu and Muslim features

  • City which celebrated the best in Muslim and Hindu architecture

• City which was built in honor of the holy man, Sheik Salim Chishti, who prophesied the birth of Akbar’s sons Salim (Jahangir), Murad, and Daniyal

• City whose latter name was given by Akbar following his defeats of the Rajputs and Gujarati, prefixing the name to mean “victorious”

• City which includes Akbar’s palace,

  • where his audience chamber is imperial

  • where he sits on a pillar, his ministers sitting in a circular gallery linked by four elegant bridges

  • where his harem of five receding stories is (was) adorned with delicate stone screens from which ladies could see themselves but not be seen

• City in which Emperor Akbar sat in his “house of worship” discussing religion with Sunni and Shia Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, and Christians

• City who was home to the holy man Sheikh Salim Chishti

• City which was just a few miles south of Delhi

• City which was abandoned after fourteen years due to the fact that Emperor Akbar failed to ever check its water supply

Hyderabad (All Facts)

• Founded by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah on the banks of the Musi River in 1590

Amritsar (All Facts)

• Sikh Holy City in the Punjab region of India

• It is famous for its namesake “Golden Temple” built during the reign of Emperor Akbar of the Mughal Empire, which centered on the “pool of immortality” and was surrounded by a finely carved marble balustrade

  • In the middle of the pool a causeway, also made of marble, led to a small island

• It was built by the fourth of the ten Sikh gurus, Guru Ram Das

• City whose architecture was a harmonious mixture of Muslim and Hindu styles, with exquisite ornamentation

Machilipatnam (All Facts)

• Trading post in the central eastern coast of India initially founded by the Dutch

Surat (All Facts)

• Site of the the first British East India Company factory in India

Odisha (All Facts)

• Modern-day name for the city (cities) in which England established its first trading posts in the Bengal region around 1633

Madraspattam / Madras / Chennai (All Facts)

• Trading post in India established by Francis Day, a merchant of England, in the 1630s

  • He acquired the land on the east coast of India from the local ruler there and had built warehouses, factories, and a fort

Delhi / Shahjahanabad (All Facts)

• City in India built by and named after Shah Jahan which features the

  • Friday Mosque

  • Red Fort

• It was the seventh city built by Shah Jahan

• City which

  • stood on the banks of the Jumna River

• City in which

  • a beautiful boulevard ran through it, shaded by trees and cooled by water

  • every month, stately pleasure domes and delightful gardens were completed

• It was just one of the many cities built by the Mughal Emperors who were obsessed with leaving their mark on the Indian landscape (like Akbar’s “Fatehpur Sikri”)

Hooghly (All Facts)

• City / District in Bengal in which a trading post was established by the British East India Company in 1650

Agra (All Facts)

• Second city and eventual Mughal imperial capital built by Emperor Akbar of the Mughal Empire

• It was located downstream from Delhi on the Jumna River

1505 - 1961 - (Portuguese) India / (Portuguese) “Golden” Goa (All Facts)

• Colony discovered by Vasco de Gama

• Colony founded during the reign of King Manuel

• Colony governed by

  • Francisco de Almeida

  • Alfonso de Albuquerque (who seized the latter namesake)

• City that was built on an island

  • It was the center of a shipbuilding industry

  • It was full of bazaars and narrow streets

  • It became dominated by churches

  • The Portuguese established Asia’s first printing press there

  • There was a royal hospital there where European and Asian medicines came together to be used

    • A typical patient was bled with leeches and then prescribed cow’s urine

• Colony which was Portugal’s focus, from which its seaborne commercial empire in Asia emerged

  • Cottons from Gujarat up the coast were traded for pepper in Sumatra

  • Pepper from Sumatra was traded for goods and gold from China

  • Gold and goods from China were traded for silver from Japan

  • Spices were lucratively exported from the namesake itself, the center of this trade network

• Colony in which

  • Portuguese men married Indian women and had children with them

  • women were bought at slave markets where

    • if they they could sew, sing, dance, or prove their virginity, they could sell for 30 cruzados

  • horses were sold for 500 cruzados

• Colony that had a minority of Portuguese there, both as traders and in the namesake colony

  • The total population there was 75K, with 3K being pure Portuguese and the rest being Indians, Africans, and Mestizos (Portuguese-Indian offspring)

  • All Portuguese there were traders, regardless of their occupation, whether as army and navy officers, settlers, and even priests

  • All their activities there were outside the official trading system, but they flourished despite opposition from King Philip and the authorities

• Colony whose prosperity for the Portuguese under the Portuguese soon gave way to the encroaching presence of Dutch and English there

1661 - 1947 - English / British Bombay (All Facts)

• England’s / Britain’s first colony (independent territory) in India

• Colony ceded to King Charles II of England by Portugal as part of the dowry of his Queen Catherine of Braganza

• With its fine natural harbor, it had the potential to become a major port for the English / British

1664 - 1954 - French India (All Facts)

1674 - (French) Pondicherry (All Facts)

• France’s first (successful) colony in India

• Colony founded by Francois Martin and the French East India Company

• Colony governed by Francois Martin and the French East India Company