India Cities
About a quarter of India's population is urban. Numerically
that is about the whole population of USA. At least 23 Indian
cities have over million residents. Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai
and Chennai are the four main cities of India. The first
three cities have over 10 million residents each. More>>
Delhi is actually comprised of two cities, Old Delhi and
New Delhi, which is the capital of India. Delhi has a large
number of historical monuments and is probably the city
with the largest number of historical monuments in the world.
Calcutta was considered in the past as the center of Indian
culture and intellectuals. Some of the famous modern India
philosophers, like Swami Vivekananda, were centered in Calcutta.
Today Calcutta is seen as the most polluted and poverty
stricken city of India. Calcutta was also the most populated
city of India. In the early 1990s Mumbai became the most
populated city of India and is in many fields the center
of India.
The first impression a foreigner gets of Mumbai is poverty.
But Mumbai for Indians is like New York and Los Angles together.
Mumbai was always the commercial, financial and entertainment
center of India. Of the 23 stock exchanges in India, the
stock exchanges of Mumbai are the most important. India
produces the largest number of movies in the world. Until
the mid-90s it had over 800 movies a year. In this field
Bollywood(like Hollywood) in Mumbai is the entertainment
center, even though some other cities of India, like Chennai
in south India produces more movies than Mumbai.
In the last few years Hyderabad, capital of Andra Pradesh,
is competing with Chennai as the movie center of India.
Hyderabad is also competing with Bangalore as the 'silicon
valley' of India. Bangalore is considered today as the technology
center of India. Most of the high technology companies that
operate in India are centered in Bangalore. Bangalore is
called 'garden city'. It is very clean compared to other
Indian cities. It is also seen as the most westernized city
in India because of the pubs and western style shopping
centers.
Most of the larger cities listed below are industrial centers
of India. Cities like Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Banglore,
Ahmedabad and Bhopal are filled with mills and factories.
Agra and Jaipur also have industries, but their main attraction
is tourism. Madurai and Varanasi are important pilgrimage
centers for Hindus. |
