Agra Fort

Agra Fort is the walled citadel from which the Mughal emperors ruled northern India for most of a century, and it is the key to understanding everything else in Agra, the Taj Mahal included. A fort stood on this bend of the Yamuna long before the Mughals, but the present one is essentially the creation of Akbar, who ordered the old brick stronghold rebuilt in 1565. Work continued until 1573: a brick core faced with red sandstone brought from the Dholpur area of Rajasthan, enclosing a half-moon plan whose straight side faces the river. It remained the principal residence of the dynasty until 1638, when Shah Jahan moved the capital to his new city of Shahjahanabad in Delhi.

The fort shows two Mughal tastes side by side. Akbar built in red stone, and his period survives in the massive outer walls, the Delhi and Amar Singh gates, and the Jahangiri Mahal. His grandson Shah Jahan preferred white marble, and from 1628 he replaced much of Akbar's interior with a new set of pavilions: the Diwan-i-Am for public audiences, the Diwan-i-Khas for private ones, the Khas Mahal, the Moti Masjid and the Musamman Burj, a marble tower on the river side. The fort's most told story belongs to that tower. After his son Aurangzeb seized power, Shah Jahan was kept under house arrest here until his death in 1666, and tradition has him spending his last years looking across the water at the tomb he had built for his wife. The same year, the Maratha leader Shivaji was held in the fort after walking out of an audience with Aurangzeb, and escaped.

What the visitor sees today is a fraction of the Mughal citadel. After the East India Company took the fort from the Marathas in 1803, the British cleared most of the remaining palace buildings to make way for barracks; fewer than 30 Mughal structures survive, concentrated on the river side. A large part of the fort, including the Delhi Gate, is still used by the Indian Army and is closed to the public. UNESCO inscribed the fort as a World Heritage Site in 1983.

Agra was the capital of the Lodi sultans before the Mughals made it theirs; today it is a provincial city of Uttar Pradesh known above all for its three World Heritage monuments, the Taj Mahal, the fort and, 35 km away, Akbar's abandoned capital of Fatehpur Sikri. The Taj Mahal is about 2.5 km away along the same bank of the river.

Getting there

The fort is in central Agra, less than 1 km from the city centre. Agra Airport (AGR) is about 6 km away but has few flights; most visitors arrive via Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi (DEL), about 200 km away, and continue by express train or road. Agra Fort railway station is next to the fort, and Agra Cantonment, the main station, is a short ride away. The Agra Metro's Yellow Line has a station at Mankameshwar near the fort, and walking between the fort and the Taj Mahal takes about half an hour.