The Red Fort is now a World
Heritage Site!
The
Delhi Fort is located in
Delhi,
India. It is also known as
Lal Qil'ah, or
Lal Qila, meaning the
Red Fort.
The Red Fort is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Delhi, attracting millions of visitors every year. The fort is also the site from which the Prime Minister of India addresses the nation on August 15, the day India achieved independence from the United Kingdom.
At one point of time, more than 3000 people lived within the premises of the Delhi Fort complex. But after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the fort was captured by Britain and was made the headquarters of the British Indian Army. After India achieved independence in 1947, the Indian Army took control over the fort. In December 2003 the Indian Army handed the fort over to the Indian tourist authorities.
The fort was the site of a December 2000 attack by terrorist group
Lashkar-e-Toiba which killed two soldiers and
one civilian in what was described in
the media as an attempt to derail the
India-
Pakistan peace process in
Kashmir.
The
Red Fort was
the palace for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's new
capital, Shahjahanabad, the seventh
Muslim city in the
Delhi site. He moved his
capital from
Agra in a
move designed to bring
prestige to his reign, and to
provide ample
opportunity to apply his ambitious building schemes and interests. The
Red Fort stands at the
eastern edge of Shahjahanabad, and gets its
name from the massive
wall of
Red sandstone that defines its
four sides. The wall is 1.5
miles (2.5 km)
long, and varies in height from 60ft (16m) on the river side to 110 ft (33 m) towards
the city. Measurements have shown that the
plan was generated using a
square grid of 82 m.
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