Chandigarh tourist information
The most striking thing about the city is the expanse of resplendent blue sky with the mountains in the backdrop. When you are approaching the city, you would see the jagged skyline of the Shivalik Hills looming large over the city and the faint image of an old temple dedicated to Goddess Chandi (15 km from Chandigarh) from which the city got its name.
Chandigarh may appear oddly familiar to Western visitors and idiosyncratic to the rest of India. Because of this, Chandigarh is a good place to visit if you need a break from the constant flow of which is often said to assault the senses, and can be overwhelming to foreign travelers.
Chandigarh is also a very safe city. With the lowest crime rates in the country you can feel safe at any hour.
The political position of Chandigarh is quite ambiguous for anybody not knowing the city well. It is the capital to two northern Indian states Punjab and Haryana besides being a union territory in itself. The birth of this modern, youngest and vibrant city was an act of anguish and drama that took place at the time of partition of India and Pakistan. Lahore, the historical capital of Punjab was ceded to Pakistan and Chandigarh was conceived to be a symbol of India's freedom.
The government of the state decided to build a new city at the foot of the Shivalik hills. Architects Albert Mayer and Mathew Novicki drew the initial plans in New York. When the latter died in an air crash in 1950, the work was entrusted to renowned Swiss born, French architect Edouard 'Le Corbusier' Jeanneret who created Chandigarh as a city of "Sun, Space and Verdure" to fulfill basic functions of working, living, and care of body and spirit. Today, the city is home to more than 900 000 people living in harmonious conditions that are considered to be the best in the country.
Le Corbusier's Secretariat Building
One can see architectural genius in the neat geometrical design of residential quarters, reinforced concrete structures and self-contained area layouts. Chandigarh is divided into 47 self-contained sectors. Each sector of the city is designed with its own shops, academic, and health care buildings, and places of worship, open spaces, greenery and the residential areas. Chandigarh is one of the best planned cities of India. Roads are pretty wide and spacious. It hasnt grown in a haphazard way as some of other Indian cities have.
The city is divided into four major work areas. In the north, the capital complex, consisting of the Secretariat, Legislative Assembly and High Court, with the hills as a background dominating the city. Sector 17, which is the city and district centre, houses the administrative and state government offices, as well as shopping malls, banks and other offices. The west contains the university, and institutions of engineering, architecture, Asian studies and medicine. Finally, the east zone, which is the industrial area of the city. Chandigarh is one of the few planned cities in India, the others being Gandhinagar in Gujarat and Dispur in Assam.
In 1966, the Hindi-speaking areas were split from the Punjabi speaking areas of the state to form a new state of Haryana. Chandigarh, however, continued to be the capital of both Punjab and Haryana. In a strange anomaly, the city itself was not made part of either state to avoid any dispute but instead brought under direct rule by the Central Government, as a union territory. It was agreed that in 1986, the city would pass to Punjab. But this has been indefinitely delayed because Haryana insists on getting some territory in return, and the two states have not been able to agree on it.
The basic geographical and demographic profile of Chandigarh is as under:
Quick Bite
| Area 114 sq. km. (44 sq mi)
|
| Altitude 304 - 365 meters above sea level (997 - 1,197 ft)
|
|
Total Population (2001 census) �: 9,00,635
(Rural population-92120 (10.2%),Urban population-808515 (89.8%))
|
| Literacy Rate 81.9%
|
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Chandigarh
