India GOHistory of Chandigarh
Chandigarh is younger than most of the people who first lived in it. When Partition in 1947 gave Lahore, the capital of undivided Punjab, to Pakistan, the Indian half of the province was left without a capital, and the government chose to build one from nothing. Le Corbusier's team drew the plan, the city was inaugurated in 1953, and since 1966 it has been a union territory and the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana.
Partition and a missing capital
In 1947 the province of Punjab was split in two: the western part went to Pakistan, the eastern part, with its Hindu and Sikh majority, stayed in India. Lahore, the provincial capital, was eventually ceded to Pakistan. The new state of East Punjab worked partly from Shimla, the old summer capital, with offices scattered across the state.
Attaching the capital to an existing town was judged as costly as building a new one, and Jawaharlal Nehru backed the project, calling for a new town "symbolic of the freedom of India, unfettered by the traditions of the past". In 1948 a site in the Kharar tehsil of Ambala district was chosen after aerial surveys, below the Shivalik hills. Building it meant taking the land of fifty-eight villages, with some 21,000 people and large mango groves; villagers protested, and an agreement on rehabilitation was reached in October 1950.
From Albert Mayer to Le Corbusier
The first master plan was by the American planner Albert Mayer, hired in 1949, with the Polish-born architect Maciej Nowicki: a fan-shaped garden city of curving streets and neighbourhood superblocks. In August 1950 Nowicki died in a plane crash, and Mayer was dropped.
P. L. Varma and P. N. Thapar, the two men who had chosen the site, went to Europe and recruited a new team: Le Corbusier, his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, and the English couple Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. Le Corbusier arrived in February 1951 and took over the plan. He kept its main positions (the Capitol at the head of the city, a central commercial centre, the railway station and industrial area) but replaced the curves with a rectilinear grid of standard blocks, now called sectors. He designed the Capitol Complex himself; the rest of the team, working with young Indian architects, designed most of the housing and public buildings.
Building the city
By September 1953 the state government had moved from Shimla, and on 7 October 1953 President Rajendra Prasad inaugurated the capital. It was built on a tight budget, from local materials and largely by hand; Sector 22 was the first sector to be developed.
On the Capitol, the Secretariat came first, the High Court began work in March 1955 and the Assembly was completed in 1962. A fourth building, first a governor's palace and then a Museum of Knowledge, was never built. Jeanneret, appointed chief architect, stayed on; his house in Sector 5 is now a museum. Le Corbusier stayed committed to the city until his death in 1965.
A capital for two states
In 1966 Punjab was reorganised along linguistic lines: the north-west remained Punjab, the south-east became Haryana and the hill districts went to Himachal Pradesh. Chandigarh was made a union territory, run directly by the central government, and became the capital of both Punjab and Haryana, with each state claiming it. In 1970 the central government announced that the city would go to Punjab, and a 1985 accord again granted it to Punjab, but neither was carried through: Chandigarh remains a union territory and a shared capital. Mohali (Punjab) and Panchkula (Haryana) grew up alongside, and the three are known as the tricity.
Stories behind the city
Some of these are history, and one is a name taken from a goddess.
The fort of Chandi
The name means "fort of Chandi": Chandi, a form of the goddess Shakti, and garh, a stronghold. It comes from a village where her temple stood; the temple survives as Chandi Mandir, just outside the city in Panchkula.
A city older than it looks
Digging the foundations in the 1950s and 1960s turned up artefacts, a cemetery and a settlement of the Indus Valley civilisation around today's Sector 17.
The secret garden
From 1957 Nek Chand, a public works employee, built a sculpture garden in secret on forest land near the Capitol, from stones and the waste of the demolished villages and the new city. Officials found it in the 1970s; it opened as the Rock Garden in 1976, and public protests later stopped attempts to demolish it.
The Open Hand
Le Corbusier's Open Hand monument, "open to give and to receive", waited decades for funding: money was sanctioned in 1972 and it was finished in 1985, after which the hand became the city's emblem.
A museum born of Partition
On 10 April 1948 the collections of the Central Museum in Lahore were divided: 60 per cent stayed in Pakistan, 40 per cent came to India. That share, Gandhara sculpture above all, waited in Amritsar, Shimla and Patiala until the Le Corbusier-designed Government Museum opened in 1968. See museums in Chandigarh.
World Heritage
In 2016 UNESCO inscribed the Capitol Complex as one of 17 sites in seven countries in the serial listing The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier. See UNESCO sites.
FAQ
Who designed Chandigarh?
Le Corbusier drew the master plan and the Capitol Complex, building on an earlier plan by Albert Mayer and Maciej Nowicki. Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew designed most of the housing and public buildings.
When was Chandigarh founded?
The site was chosen in 1948, Le Corbusier took over the plan in 1951, and President Rajendra Prasad inaugurated the capital on 7 October 1953.
Why was Chandigarh built?
Partition in 1947 gave Lahore, the capital of Punjab, to Pakistan, and the Indian part of Punjab needed a new capital. Building a new city was judged no costlier than enlarging an existing one.
Is Chandigarh the first planned city of India?
It is one of the earliest planned cities of independent India and the best known internationally, for its architecture and urban design.
Which state is Chandigarh in?
None. Since 1966 Chandigarh has been a union territory governed by the central government, and it serves as the capital of both Punjab and Haryana.
What does the name Chandigarh mean?
"Fort of Chandi", after the goddess Chandi, whose temple stood in one of the villages on the site; it survives as Chandi Mandir in Panchkula.
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Facts checked: 15 October 2026. Prices and hours are approximate; check locally.
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