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Mumbai attractions


Mumbai attractions

There is a lot to see in Mumbai, but the typical "tourist" sights are concentrated in South Mumbai. By Indian standards, Mumbai is a young city and much of the land comprising the city did not exist until it was claimed from the sea over three centuries ago. It is therefore, a pleasant surprise to find rock cut caves such as the Elephanta, Kanheri, and Mahakali within city limits.

The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Mumbai

The game of names

The names of Mumbai's monuments tell us the story of which way political winds were blowing when they were built. In the late 19th century the British named everything after their Queen, so we had Victoria terminus, Victoria Gardens, and the Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (built in 1887 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Her Majesty's coronation). In the early 20th century, they named everything after the Prince of Wales.

After independence the colonial names could not be retained of course, so they were renamed. Depending on whether the city was suffering from bouts of nationalistic pride or Marathi pride at that time, they were named after either Jawaharlal Nehru (the first Prime Minister of India) or Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj (King Shivaji, who founded the Maratha empire in the 18th century). Often, they were named after Shivaji's mother, Jijabai. The advantage of this was that using Veermata Jijabai ("Courageous mother Jijabai") for a place that was earlier named for Victoria maintains the same abbreviation, so "Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute" (formerly Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute) is still VJTI.

For a traveller, the practical problem would be that many places have multiple names. Multiple places are named after Nehru, Shivaji, or Jijabai, so you need to be careful about specifying which place you need to get to.

Few important names changes to remember are:

  • 'Victoria Terminus' is now 'Chhtrapati Shivaji Terminus'
  • 'Jacob Circle' is now 'Saat Rasta' or 'Sant Gaadge Maharaj Chowk'
  • 'King's Circle' is now 'Maheshwari Udyyan'
  • 'Kurla Terminus' is now 'Lokmanya Tilak Terminus'

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Mumbai Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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