Jaipur

The story of Jaipur

Jaipur is one of the earliest planned cities of modern India, and the thing to notice first is that it was laid out as a designed capital rather than grown street by street. Jaipur was founded by Sawai Jai Singh II, the Kachhwaha Rajput ruler of Amer, on 18 November 1727, and the city carries his name.

He wanted to shift his capital from Amber, 11 kilometres away, to a place better suited to a growing population and increasing scarcity of water. He consulted several architects and set the plan according to Vastu Shastra and Shilpa Shastra, under the architectural guidance of Vidyadhar Bhattacharya. The construction of the city began in 1726, and Britannica adds that Jaipur is also one of the earliest planned cities of modern India. That gives you the key idea here: this is not just a city, but a carefully ordered royal project.

As you stand in Jaipur today, the most visible legacy of that planning is the regular street pattern. The city was divided into nine blocks, with two for the state buildings and palaces and the remaining seven allotted to the public. Huge ramparts were built, pierced by seven fortified gates. Three of those gates face east, west, and north: Suraj pol, Chand pol, and the northern gate facing the ancestral capital of Amer. The urban quarters were further divided by networks of gridded streets, and the city is unusual among pre-modern Indian cities for the regularity of its streets and the division into six sectors by broad streets 34 m wide.

The name Jaipur itself comes from Sawai Jai Singh II, with “pur” meaning city or town, so the name essentially means “The City of Jai” or “Jai’s City.” Later history left its own mark on the streets and buildings. During the rule of Sawai Ram Singh II, the city was painted pink to welcome Albert Edward, Prince of Wales in 1876. Many avenues remain painted in pink, which is why Jaipur is widely called the Pink City.

Politically, the city served as the capital of Jaipur State during the British colonial period, and after Indian independence in 1947 it became the capital of the newly formed state of Rajasthan in 1949. So the place you are looking at has been both a planned royal capital and a modern state capital.

Jaipur is also a major tourist destination and part of the Golden Triangle with Delhi and Agra. On 6 July 2019, the city was placed on the World Heritage Cities list, and the information here notes a World Heritage Site status since 2019, with a tentative listing dating from 2015-04-15. That means the city as a whole is recognized for the value of its historic plan and surviving fabric.

What should you look for while you are here? First, the geometry: the broad streets, the gated edges, and the way the city was divided into blocks. Second, the pink-painted streets and facades that still give it its nickname. Third, the fact that this was designed with a planned relationship between public quarters and state quarters, which is still legible in the urban form. And if you are moving on through the area, Ram Niwas Garden lies within Jaipur, reminding you that this planned city later absorbed new public spaces as it grew.