Kolkata

👥 15.7M metro population 300+ College St bookshops 1984 India's first metro

Bengal's cultural capital: colonial mansions, yellow Ambassador taxis, old coffee houses and the College Street book market (the largest in India). A literary, unhurried city of sweets and India's grandest Durga Puja.

Highlights

Howrah BridgeThe city's steel signature

Victoria MemorialA British palace

Belur MathA synthesis of all religions

Dakshineswar Kali TempleMeeting the dark goddess

Hangseshwari TempleThirteen lotus towers in Bengal

New Market (Hogg Market)Two thousand stalls under one Victorian clock tower, trading since 1874

KalighatThe ancient heart of Kali worship

St. Paul's CathedralA Gothic Revival masterpiece

What to see 51

Howrah BridgeThe city's steel signatureDetails →

Victoria MemorialA British palaceDetails →

Belur MathA synthesis of all religionsDetails →

Dakshineswar Kali TempleMeeting the dark goddessDetails →

Hangseshwari TempleThirteen lotus towers in BengalDetails →

New Market (Hogg Market)Two thousand stalls under one Victorian clock tower, trading since 1874Details →

Birla PlanetariumDetails →

Jorasanko ThakurbariTagore's houseDetails →

Marble PalaceA frozen 19th-century dreamDetails →

Prinsep GhatSunset, wooden boats and a lit bridge: the riverside evening Kolkata keeps for itselfDetails →

Shaheed MinarThe Maidan's tallest exclamation, borrowed from Egypt, Syria and Turkey at onceDetails →

Alipore Jail MuseumIndependence history told in the place it happened, rather than behind glassDetails →

Indian MuseumFour thousand years of the subcontinent, from Bharhut railings to an Egyptian mummyDetails →

Metcalfe HallRestored, free of crowds, and hiding a gallery of the city's oldest mapsDetails →

Netaji BhawanThe house Bose escaped from in 1941, with the getaway car still parked insideDetails →

Science CityThe subcontinent's biggest science centre, built for pushing, pressing and staying too longDetails →

South Park Street CemeteryPark Street's traffic on one side of the wall, complete stillness on the otherDetails →

Mother HouseMother Teresa's KolkataDetails →

Pareshnath Jain TempleMirrors, mosaic and coloured glass: the most luminous temple interior in the cityDetails →

Nakhoda MasjidMughal proportions above the lanes of Chitpur: the mosque the mariners builtDetails →

Birla MandirWhite marble lit from below at the hour when the evening lamps are offeredDetails →

Rabindra SarobarMist, rowing sculls and birdsong in the two hours before the city wakesDetails →

Chintamoni Kar Bird SanctuaryReal forest at the end of the metro line, kept quiet and known mostly to birdersDetails →

Alipore Zoological GardenOpen since 1876, and a Kolkata winter picnic tradition as much as a zooDetails →

Mullick Ghat Flower MarketDawn under the bridgeDetails →

BurrabazarFifty thousand people a day and a whole street per trade: commerce as spectacleDetails →

Gariahat MarketThe everyday market where Bengal's cotton saris are actually boughtDetails →

Hatibagan MarketPuja shopping the way North Kolkata does it, almost entirely without visitorsDetails →

Oxford BookstoreA century on Park Street, with 150 kinds of tea poured beside the shelvesDetails →

ByloomBengal's handloom with a contemporary eye, in a house rather than a showroomDetails →

Dakshinapan Shopping ComplexEvery state's crafts under one roof, with price tags you don't have to argue withDetails →

The Russell ExchangeAsia's oldest auction room still takes bids on a Sunday morningDetails →

Weavers StudioKantha, shibori and block print made on site, with an archive to matchDetails →

Tiretta BazaarBreakfast in old ChinatownDetails →

Magen David SynagogueMarble, chandeliers and stained glass kept up by a community of a few dozenDetails →

KalighatThe ancient heart of Kali worship

St. Paul's CathedralA Gothic Revival masterpiece

Yogoda SatsangaYogananda's ashram

College StreetThe world's largest book market

KumartuliThe lanes where gods are made

Chandannagar Strand (French Riverside)An hour north, a French promenade on the Hooghly and the river's best sunset

Currency Building (Ghare Baire)Changing art exhibitions inside the restored colonial currency office

Armenian Church of the Holy NazarethA gravestone from 1630, older than British Calcutta, in a courtyard few find

St. John's Church & Job Charnock's MausoleumThe city's first cathedral, with its founding legend buried in the yard outside

AJC Bose Indian Botanic Garden & the Great BanyanA single tree you can walk inside, half a kilometre around its canopy

Santragachi JheelSeven thousand wintering waterfowl on a lake beside a commuter platform

Agri-Horticultural Society GardenTwo centuries of flower shows, and the rest of the year almost nobody there

Eco Park (Prakriti Tirtha)New Town at leisure: bicycles, gardens and a lake wide enough for the sunset

The MaidanThe city's shared back garden: football, carriages and the last heritage tram

Dasgupta & Co.Since 1886: thirty-four books grown into the anchor of the world's biggest book district

The Seagull BookstoreA world publisher's own shop, quiet and full of editions India rarely stocks

Everything about Kolkata

On the map

51 places · the full map is in the app