By road
Eastern India's main gateway, well connected by air and rail nationwide
East India · West Bengal
Kolkata, West Bengal
The city of joy, colonial bones and adda · Eastern India's main gateway, well connected by air and rail nationwide
Getting there
By rail
Howrah Junction and Sealdah, both in the city, among India's busiest stations
By air
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, in the city
Best time to visit
October to February; Durga Puja (Oct) is the crescendo
Don't miss
Victoria Memorial
Howrah Bridge
Marble Palace
Indian Museum
Dakshineswar
Things to do
Heritage walks
Hooghly ferry rides
College Street book digs
Puchka crawls
Where to eat
Sources: wikimedia, Photo: Ketanmehta4u · CC BY-SA 3.0
What to pack
Walking shoes, appetite, tram-and-ferry small change
A quieter corner
Kumartuli's idol-makers' lanes in the run-up to Puja
About Kolkata
- Riverside
Where it is
Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, is the capital of West Bengal, spread along the east bank of the Hooghly River in the lower Ganges delta of eastern India, some way inland from the Bay of Bengal.
History
Kolkata's recorded history begins in 1690, when the English East India Company settled at the villages of Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata. The city grew into the capital of British India until 1911, and in the 19th century it was the centre of the Bengal Renaissance, a flowering of social reform, literature and science.
People
Kolkata's people speak Bengali, with Hindi and Urdu also widely spoken, and the city has old Armenian, Chinese, Jewish, Anglo-Indian and Marwari communities, including India's only Chinatown. The city is known for its literature, theatre, film and football, and for adda, long conversation over tea.
Known for
- The Victoria Memorial and the Maidan
- Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly
- Durga Puja, a UNESCO-listed festival
- College Street's book stalls
- Rosogolla, sandesh and street food
Did you know?
Kolkata Metro, opened in 1984, was India's first metro, and in 2024 it became the first in the country to run trains through a tunnel beneath a river, the Hooghly.
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