Kolkata travel guide

Top 10 sights in Kolkata

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1© Subhrajyoti07 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Victoria Memorial

   Curzon's idea, built 1906-21 in white Makrana marble — the same quarry as the Taj — with a dome that owes something to St Paul's. The bronze Angel of Victory on top turns in the wind. Inside are 28,000 objects of the Raj, shown with more candour than they once were.

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2. 

   2© Biswarup Ganguly · CC BY 3.0

   Indian Museum

   Founded in 1814 and the oldest museum in India, with about a hundred thousand objects. Its greatest holding is the railing and gateway of the Bharhut stupa, carved in the second century BC and rebuilt inside the galleries.

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3. 

   3© Bibek Raj Pandeya · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Dakshineswar Kali Temple

   A nine-spired temple to Kali on the east bank of the Hooghly, built in 1855 by a widow of the merchant class. Ramakrishna served as its priest for thirty years, and the room he lived in is kept as it was.

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4. 

   4

   Fort William

   Rebuilt from 1758 after Siraj ud-Daulah took the first fort and the Black Hole followed. Octagonal, walled in brick, and so expensive that the Company complained for decades — it was never once attacked. It remains an army headquarters and is closed to visitors.

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5. 

   5© Hiroki Ogawa · CC BY 3.0

   Kalighat Kali Temple

   A temple to Kali in southern Kolkata, rebuilt in its present form in 1809 and counted among the fifty-one shakti pithas. The city may take its name from this place; goats are still sacrificed in the forecourt.

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6. 

   6© DeepanjanGhosh · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Tipu Sultan Mosque

   A mosque on Dharmatala Street built in 1842 by a son of Tipu Sultan, who had been exiled to Calcutta with his family after his father's defeat and death at Seringapatam.

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7. 

   7© Ankitesh Jha · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St. Paul's Cathedral

   Consecrated in 1847 and the first Anglican cathedral built anywhere in the East. Earthquakes brought its spire down twice; the present one copies Bell Harry tower at Canterbury. The west window is by Burne-Jones, and the lawns around it are the quietest ground in central Kolkata.

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8. 

   8© Biswarup Ganguly · CC BY 3.0

   Maidan

   A vast open green in the middle of Kolkata, kept clear as a field of fire for Fort William and never built on. The Victoria Memorial and the Eden Gardens cricket ground stand within it, and it is called the lungs of the city.

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9. 

   9© Jeroje at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden

   A botanical garden founded at Shibpur in 1787, where tea plants from China were first raised for the Assam plantations. Its great banyan, over two hundred and fifty years old, spreads across more than a hectare and has no main trunk left.

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10. 

    10© Sumit Surai · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Cathedral of the Most Holy Rosary

    The Catholic cathedral of Kolkata, built in 1799 in the Burrabazar quarter and known as the Portuguese Church after the community that raised it — one of the oldest in the city.

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1. 

   1© Gangulybiswarup · CC BY 3.0

   Jorasanko Thakur Bari

   The Tagore family mansion in north Kolkata, where Rabindranath was born in 1861 and died in 1941. It is now a museum and a university, and the rooms hold his manuscripts, paintings and the boat he wrote in.

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2. 

   2© Kinjal bose 78 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Belur Math

   The headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission on the Hooghly, founded by Vivekananda in 1897. Its main temple was deliberately designed to read as Hindu, Islamic and Christian at once, depending on where you stand.

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3. 

   3© en:User:Mjanich · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Marble Palace

   A merchant's mansion of 1835 in north Kolkata, floored in a hundred and twenty-six kinds of marble and crammed with Rubens, Reynolds, statuary and clocks in no order at all. Peacocks walk the courtyard, the family still lives upstairs, and entry needs a free permit obtained in advance.

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4. 

   4© Biswarup Ganguly · CC BY 3.0

   Alipore Zoological Gardens

   Opened in 1876 and the oldest formally constituted zoo in India. Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise who had been a present to Robert Clive, died here in 2006 at a reputed age of about 250, which would make him among the longest-lived animals recorded.

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5. 

   5© Biswarup Ganguly · CC BY 3.0

   Tollygunge

   A district in southern Kolkata in West Bengal in India. It is the centre of the Bengali film industry and is also used as a location by film industries from elsewhere.

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6. 

   6© The original uploader was P.K.Niyogi at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Esplanade

   The central business district of Kolkata and its main transport junction, where the tram lines, bus terminus and metro converge at the edge of the Maidan.

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7. 

   7© The original uploader was Nikkul at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Dakshineswar

   The Kali temple on the Hooghly, built in 1855 by Rani Rashmoni, a widow of the merchant caste whom the priesthood tried to stop. Twelve Shiva shrines line the river front. Ramakrishna served as priest here for thirty years and his room is kept as it was.

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8. 

   8© Ankur P from Pune, India · CC BY 2.0

   Birla Mandir

   A Hindu temple on Ashutosh Chowdhury Avenue at Ballygunge in Kolkata, built by the industrialist Birla family. It holds avatars of Vishnu such as Rama and Krishna, and pilgrims come from far off for Janmashtami, Krishna's birthday.

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9. 

   9© DeepanjanGhosh · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Nakhoda Masjid

   Mosque in Kolkata of 1926, modelled on Akbar's tomb at Sikandra. Its red sandstone front carries two minarets of forty-six metres and it holds ten thousand worshippers.

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10. 

    10© Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0

    B. B. D. Bagh

    The administrative and financial heart of Kolkata, formerly called Dalhousie Square. It holds the Writers' Building, seat of the West Bengal government, the governor's residence Raj Bhavan, the state legislature and the Calcutta High Court.

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