Walled City of Jaipur

The Walled City of Jaipur, often called the Pink City, occupies the Old City around Badi Chaupar in Rajasthan, India. Sawai Jai Singh II founded it in 1727 as a planned capital to replace Amer, which had become cramped and short of water. The design is attributed to the Bengali architect Vidyadhar Bhattacharya, who followed principles of the Vastu Shastra and the Shilpa Shastra texts, laying the city out on a grid of nine rectangular blocks called chowkris. Two of the blocks hold the palace complex and the remaining seven were given to residential and commercial quarters. A crenellated wall with seven gates, among them Chandpole, Sanganeri and Ajmeri, enclosed the city, and broad straight streets lined with uniform shopfronts meet at open squares called chaupars. In 1876 the walls and buildings were painted terracotta pink to welcome the Prince of Wales, a colour that became a legal requirement and an emblem of hospitality. UNESCO inscribed the Walled City of Jaipur as a World Heritage Site in 2019 for its exchange of cultural values and its model of 18th-century town planning. Landmarks within the walls include the City Palace, Jantar Mantar, Hawa Mahal and the Govind Devji Temple, while the Johari, Bapu and Tripolia bazaars still trade in jewellery, textiles, lacquer bangles and block-printed cloth, as guild streets have done for nearly three centuries. The area is a living city instead of a curated museum, so visitors learn the history by walking its bazaars, gates and havelis, with the Jaipur Municipal Corporation and state agencies responsible for maintenance. Restoration is ongoing and uneven, since rising traffic, signboards and modern shopfronts have altered some streets, while a heritage programme has repainted facades and cleared encroachments on several main roads. Traditional crafts continue in lanes behind the main streets, and the best way to see the planning is to walk the grid in early morning before the shops open.