Travel India

Overview of Agra

Agra finds mention in the epic Mahabharata when it was called Agrabana are Paradise. Ptolemy, the famous second century A.D. geographer, marked it on his map of the world as Agra. Tradition and legend ascribe the present city of Raja Badal Singh (around 1475 A.D.) whose Fort, Badalgarh, Stood on or near the site of the present Fort. However, the 12th century A.D. persian poet Salman writes of a desperate assault on the fortress of Agra, then held by one King Jaipal, by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.

It is a city on the banks of the Yamuna River in India. It was ruled by Sultan Sikandar Lodi in the year 1506. It lies currently in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It achieved fame as the capital of the Mughal emperors from 1526 to 1658 and remains a major tourist destination because of its many splendid Mughal-era buildings, most notably the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, all three of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The city has little else to recommend it. Pollution is rampant (both industrial, in the form of smog, and human, in the form of raw sewage and trash). There is no doubt that tourism is the major industry of the city. Tourists have to live with the touts and hawkers who swarm like bees around them at every monument, mosque, temple or palace. That said, the sites are some of the wonders of the world and no trip to India is complete without at least one visit to the Taj.