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Chandigarh
Chandigarh is a city and union territory in northwestern India, serving as the shared capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana. Situated near the foothills of the Shivalik range of Himalayas, it borders Haryana to the east and Punjab in the remaining directions. Chandigarh constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which also includes the adjacent satellite cities of Panchkula in Haryana and Mohali in Punjab. It is located 260 km (162 miles) northwest of New Delhi and 229 km (143 miles) southeast of Amritsar and 104 km (64 miles) southwest of Shimla.
Chandigarh is one of the earliest planned cities in post-independence India and is internationally known for its architecture and urban design. The master plan of the city was prepared by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, which built upon earlier plans created by the Polish architect Maciej Nowicki and the American planner Albert Mayer. Most of the government buildings and housing in the city were designed by a team headed by Le Corbusier and British architects Dame Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. Chandigarh's Capitol Complex—as part of a global ensemble of Le Corbusier's buildings—was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO at the 40th session of the World Heritage Conference in July 2016.
Chandigarh has grown greatly since its initial construction, and has also driven the development of Mohali and Panchkula; the tri-city metropolitan area has a combined population of over 1,611,770. The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country. The union territory has the third-highest Human Development Index among Indian states and territories. In 2015, a survey by LG Electronics ranked it as the happiest city in India on the happiness index. In 2015, an article published by the BBC identified Chandigarh as one of the few master-planned cities in the world to have succeeded in terms of combining monumental architecture, cultural growth, and modernisation.
The name Chandigarh means "fort of Chandi" and is a compound of Chandi, which refers to the Hindu goddess Chandi, a manifestation of Shakti, and Garh, meaning stronghold or fortress. The name is taken from a village where a temple dedicated to goddess Chandi stood. The temple exists today at Chandi Mandir, on the outskirts of the city, in the neighbouring district of Panchkula in Haryana.
The motif or sobriquet of "The City of Beauty" was derived from the City Beautiful movement, which was a popular philosophy in North American urban planning during the 1890s and 1900s. Architect Albert Mayer, the initial planner of Chandigarh, lamented the American rejection of City Beautiful concepts and declared, "We want to create a beautiful city". The phrase was used as a logo in official publications in the 1970s and is now how the city describes itself.
The establishment of the city of Chandigarh was the result of the crises and chaos in northwestern India in the aftermath of its independence from British colonial rule. During the partition of India in 1947, the province of Punjab was divided into two: the majority Hindu and Sikh eastern portion that remained in India and the majority Muslim western portion that became part of Pakistan. Lahore, the provincial capital of undivided Punjab, though fiercely contested during partition, was eventually ceded to Pakistan. The provincial government of independent India’s East Punjab state was left without an administrative center or capital.
The loss of Lahore, the need for the rehabilitation of refugees from West Pakistan and a mounting exodus of business communities from the state created a sense of urgency. Shimla, the former summer capital of both British India and the Punjab province, partially housed the government of East Punjab state. Shimla’s inability to fully contain the administrative machinery resulted in government offices to be scattered at several places across the state, imposing difficulties and costs on the public as well as the government.
It was decided by representatives of the government of India and of the state of East Punjab to build a new capital for the state, because attaching capital functions to an existing city—all of which were considered inadequate and had swollen in size due to migration of refugees from West Pakistan—was considered as costly as building a new city.
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Chandigarh
Chandigarh is a city and union territory in northwestern India, serving as the shared capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana. Situated near the foothills of the Shivalik range of Himalayas, it borders Haryana to the east and Punjab in the remaining directions. Chandigarh constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which also includes the adjacent satellite cities of Panchkula in Haryana and Mohali in Punjab. It is located 260 km (162 miles) northwest of New Delhi and 229 km (143 miles) southeast of Amritsar and 104 km (64 miles) southwest of Shimla.
Chandigarh is one of the earliest planned cities in post-independence India and is internationally known for its architecture and urban design. The master plan of the city was prepared by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, which built upon earlier plans created by the Polish architect Maciej Nowicki and the American planner Albert Mayer. Most of the government buildings and housing in the city were designed by a team headed by Le Corbusier and British architects Dame Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. Chandigarh's Capitol Complex—as part of a global ensemble of Le Corbusier's buildings—was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO at the 40th session of the World Heritage Conference in July 2016.
Chandigarh has grown greatly since its initial construction, and has also driven the development of Mohali and Panchkula; the tri-city metropolitan area has a combined population of over 1,611,770. The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country. The union territory has the third-highest Human Development Index among Indian states and territories. In 2015, a survey by LG Electronics ranked it as the happiest city in India on the happiness index. In 2015, an article published by the BBC identified Chandigarh as one of the few master-planned cities in the world to have succeeded in terms of combining monumental architecture, cultural growth, and modernisation.
The name Chandigarh means "fort of Chandi" and is a compound of Chandi, which refers to the Hindu goddess Chandi, a manifestation of Shakti, and Garh, meaning stronghold or fortress. The name is taken from a village where a temple dedicated to goddess Chandi stood. The temple exists today at Chandi Mandir, on the outskirts of the city, in the neighbouring district of Panchkula in Haryana.
The motif or sobriquet of "The City of Beauty" was derived from the City Beautiful movement, which was a popular philosophy in North American urban planning during the 1890s and 1900s. Architect Albert Mayer, the initial planner of Chandigarh, lamented the American rejection of City Beautiful concepts and declared, "We want to create a beautiful city". The phrase was used as a logo in official publications in the 1970s and is now how the city describes itself.
The establishment of the city of Chandigarh was the result of the crises and chaos in northwestern India in the aftermath of its independence from British colonial rule. During the partition of India in 1947, the province of Punjab was divided into two: the majority Hindu and Sikh eastern portion that remained in India and the majority Muslim western portion that became part of Pakistan. Lahore, the provincial capital of undivided Punjab, though fiercely contested during partition, was eventually ceded to Pakistan. The provincial government of independent India’s East Punjab state was left without an administrative center or capital.
The loss of Lahore, the need for the rehabilitation of refugees from West Pakistan and a mounting exodus of business communities from the state created a sense of urgency. Shimla, the former summer capital of both British India and the Punjab province, partially housed the government of East Punjab state. Shimla’s inability to fully contain the administrative machinery resulted in government offices to be scattered at several places across the state, imposing difficulties and costs on the public as well as the government.
It was decided by representatives of the government of India and of the state of East Punjab to build a new capital for the state, because attaching capital functions to an existing city—all of which were considered inadequate and had swollen in size due to migration of refugees from West Pakistan—was considered as costly as building a new city.