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Agra

Agra is a city on the Yamuna in Uttar Pradesh that became the capital of the Lodi sultans in the early sixteenth century and then of the Mughal emperors, and that holds Akbar's fort and the Taj Mahal.

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The Lodi capital

There was a settlement and a brick fort at Agra before the sixteenth century, but the city's history as a capital begins with Sikandar Lodi, who moved his court there in the early 1500s, usually dated around 1506. Agra was better placed than Delhi for his campaigns against the Rajput chiefs of Gwalior and Dholpur. His son Ibrahim Lodi ruled from Agra until he was killed at Panipat in 1526.

The Mughals

Babur sent his son Humayun ahead to secure Agra after Panipat, and it was there, by Mughal tradition, that the family of the defeated Raja of Gwalior presented Humayun with a great diamond, often identified with the Koh-i-Noor. Babur laid out gardens on the east bank of the river, the first Mughal gardens in India; the Ram Bagh is held to be one of them.

Akbar rebuilt the old fort in red sandstone between 1565 and the early 1570s. Its walls run for about two and a half kilometres along the river. Inside, of Akbar's buildings, the Jahangiri Mahal survives; the white marble halls and pavilions were added by Shah Jahan. Akbar moved his capital to Fatehpur Sikri in 1571 and to Lahore in 1585, but returned to Agra in 1598 and died there in 1605. His tomb stands at Sikandra on the city's edge, completed under Jahangir in 1613.

Shah Jahan's city

Under Jahangir and Shah Jahan, Agra was one of the largest cities in the world. Nur Jahan built a tomb of white marble with inlaid stone for her father, Itimad-ud-Daulah, in the 1620s; it is often treated as a forerunner of the Taj. Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631, across a bend of the river from the fort, with work running from 1632 into the 1640s and the wider complex finished in the early 1650s. He moved the court to Shahjahanabad in 1648. After Aurangzeb took power in 1658 he kept his father confined in Agra Fort until Shah Jahan's death in 1666.

In 1666 Shivaji, summoned to Aurangzeb's court at Agra and placed under guard, escaped, an episode that became central to Maratha tradition.

After the Mughals

In the eighteenth century Agra changed hands repeatedly. The Jats of Bharatpur under Suraj Mal took it in 1761, and the Marathas later held it under Mahadji Scindia. The British took the city in 1803 and made it the seat of the North-Western Provinces for a time. During the rebellion of 1857 the British garrison and many civilians shut themselves in the fort for several months. The city is now known chiefly for the Taj Mahal, the fort and its crafts, including inlaid marble work descended from the Mughal workshops.

Further reading

  • Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1993
  • Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
  • Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press, 1999

See also

  • Lodi dynasty — The Lodis were the last dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, the first of Afghan rather than Turkish origin, and their defeat at Panipat in 1526 brought the Mughals to India.
  • Mughal Empire — The Mughal Empire was a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Timurid and Chagatai descent that ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from Babur's victory at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 until the deposition of Bahadur Shah II following the 1857 rebellion, reaching its territorial and cultural peak under Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb.
  • Akbar — Akbar, born Jalal-ud-din Muhammad, was the third Mughal emperor, who ruled from 1556 to 1605, expanded the empire across most of the Indian subcontinent, and restructured its administration and religious policy.
  • Taj Mahal — The Taj Mahal is a white marble mausoleum complex on the Yamuna river at Agra, built between 1632 and 1653 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and one of the most recognized buildings in the world.
  • Aurangzeb — Aurangzeb (reigned 1658–1707), known also by his regnal title Alamgir, was the sixth Mughal emperor, under whom the empire reached its greatest territorial extent while sustained warfare in the Deccan and religiously restrictive policies strained its finances and cohesion.
  • Shivaji — Shivaji Bhonsle (1630–1680) was the founder of the Maratha Empire, crowned Chhatrapati in 1674 after building an independent state in the Deccan through decades of warfare against the Bijapur Sultanate and the Mughal Empire.
  • Battles of Panipat — The three Battles of Panipat, fought in 1526, 1556, and 1761 on the same plain north of Delhi, were successive decisive engagements that respectively founded the Mughal Empire, secured it under Akbar, and ended Maratha ambitions of dominance in North India.

This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.