Ancient Ruins & Forgotten Sites

Imphal, Manipur

Kangla Fort

Idar Hill (Idargarh)

Idargarh Fort Ruins

The historic medieval fort ruins resting on top of the granite hill. It features the remains of the royal palace (Kharar Mahal), rock-cut guard posts, and panoramic vistas over the boulder terrain.

Tranquebar (Tharangambadi)

Dansborg Fort

A 17th-century Danish fort on the beach.

Junagadh, Gujarat

Uparkot Fort

Tarkarli (Malvan)

Sindhudurg Fort

A colossal 17th-century island maritime fortress featuring massive stone walls built directly on a sea reef outcrop, accessible via ferry.

Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

Jaisalmer Fort

Gandikota

Gandikota Fort

A historic hilltop fort overlooking the gorge, with old temples and a mosque.

Bikaner, Rajasthan

Junagarh Fort

Madhya Pradesh

Asirgarh Fort

Asirgarh Fort is a roughly 60-acre, three-part fortress (Asirgarh, Kamargarh and Malaygarh) in the Satpura Range about 20-27 km north of Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh, commanding a historically important pass between northern India and the Deccan.

Odisha

Barabati Fort

Barabati is the moated riverside fort of the Eastern Ganga kings, raised around the 13th century beside the Mahanadi at Cuttack, the millennium-old capital of Odisha. Its carved laterite gateway and wide moat survive, and excavation has uncovered palace foundations within. The fort gave its name to the modern Barabati Stadium next door, and the Kadam Rasul shrine and silver-filigree lanes of old Cuttack are minutes away.

Telangana

Bhongir Fort

Bhongir (Bhuvanagiri) Fort sits on a single colossal granite rock said to date to the 12th-century Western Chalukya ruler Tribhuvanamalla, from whom the town takes its name. Walls and gateways spiral up the monolith's bare face to a summit with cisterns, magazines and a cannon still gazing over the Telangana plains. It is now also a popular rock-climbing site.

Karnataka

Bidar Fort

Bidar Fort stands on a plateau in Bidar, northeastern Karnataka, near the borders of Maharashtra and Telangana. Built from red laterite stone as an irregular rhombus with double lines of defensive fortifications, 37 bastions, and a triple-channeled moat, it served as the capital of the Bahmani Sultanate.

Goa

Cabo de Rama Fort

Cabo de Rama takes its name from the legend that Lord Rama sheltered on this cape during his exile. The headland fort — held by the Soonda rajas until the Portuguese took it in 1763 — is mostly a romantic ruin now: laterite ramparts, a few rusting cannon and the little white church of St. Anthony still in use inside the walls. The real spectacle is the cliff-top view down the wild Canacona coastline and the hidden beaches below.

Madhya Pradesh

Chanderi Fort

Chanderi Fort looks down on a medieval town famous for its gossamer handloom sarees. Fought over by Malwa sultans, Rajputs and Mughals, it is remembered for Babur's 1528 assault and the jauhar of the Rajput garrison at the Jauhar Smarak. The Kirti Durg's walls, the Khooni Darwaza gate and the Kati Ghati — a gateway sliced clean through the hill's rock in a single night, says the legend — watch over lakes, tombs and bazaars below.

Uttar Pradesh

Chunar Fort

Chunar Fort stands on a rocky outcrop of the Vindhya Range overlooking a bend in the Ganges, roughly 280 feet above the river, and has passed through the hands of Hindu, Afghan, Mughal, and British rulers.

Tamil Nadu

Dindigul Fort

Dindigul Fort is a hilltop fortress rising about 900 feet above Dindigul town in Tamil Nadu, with a fortification circumference of about 2.75 km enclosing 48 rooms, arsenal depots, stables, and cannon emplacements. It is closely associated with Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan of Mysore.

Rajasthan

Gagron Fort

Gagron is Rajasthan's great jala-durg — a water fort — standing where the Ahu meets the Kali Sindh, with rivers guarding three of its sides in place of a moat. Seat of the Khichi Chauhans and besieged repeatedly by the sultans of Malwa and later held by the Mughals and Kotah, it is one of the six forts inscribed together as the UNESCO World Heritage 'Hill Forts of Rajasthan'. Unlike its famous siblings, you will often have its ramparts to yourself.

Gingee, Tamil Nadu

Gingee Fort

Jammu & Kashmir

Hari Parbat Fort

Hari Parbat rises at the heart of Srinagar, ringed by a wall Akbar began in 1590 and crowned by the fort the Afghan governor Atta Mohammad Khan completed in the early 19th century. The hill is sacred to every faith of the Valley: the Sharika Devi temple of the goddess Chakreshwari, the shrine of Makhdoom Sahib on the slope, and a historic gurdwara at its foot. From the ramparts the whole of Srinagar — Dal Lake, old city and Zabarwan hills — spreads below.

Uttar Pradesh

Kalinjar Fort

Kalinjar is one of the legendary strongholds of central India, crowning a flat spur of the Vindhyas above the Bundelkhand plain. Sacred to Shiva as Neelkanth — the rock-cut Neelkanth temple sits in a cleft of the cliff — it resisted Mahmud of Ghazni, saw Sher Shah Suri fatally wounded during his 1545 siege, and passed through Chandela, Mughal and British hands. Gates, tanks, palaces and centuries of sculpture lie scattered across its windswept plateau.

Karnataka

Madhugiri Fort

Madhugiri is a fort wrapped around one of Asia's largest single rock hills — a bare granite monolith rising nearly 4,000 feet, its slopes stitched with walls, bastions and gateways. Built up by local Gowda chiefs and later held by Hyder Ali, the climb to the summit follows steps and railings cut straight into the steep rock face. The reward is a windswept top with views across the boulder country of Tumakuru.

Maharashtra

Naldurg Fort

Naldurg is the Deccan's great water-engineered fort: a basalt stronghold of 114 bastions where the Bori river was dammed to fill the moat and, in flood, to spill over the Pani Mahal — a machine-room palace built inside the dam wall itself, with rooms behind the waterfall. Held by the Bahmanis, Adil Shahis and Mughals, its Upli Buruj and ravine-edge walls are astonishingly intact and astonishingly empty.

Punjab

Qila Mubarak, Bathinda

Qila Mubarak at Bathinda is counted among the oldest surviving forts in India, its enormous weathered brick bastions rising from foundations associated with the Kushan age. Razia Sultan, Delhi's first and only woman sultan, is said to have been imprisoned here after her defeat in 1240. Within the walls stands a gurdwara marking the visit of Guru Gobind Singh, and the fort's 30-plus metre bastions still dominate the city's skyline.

Maharashtra

Rajgad Fort

Rajgad Fort stands on a hill known as Murumbadevi Dongar in Pune district, Maharashtra, about 50-60 km southwest of Pune city, rising to 1,376 metres above sea level with a base perimeter of roughly 40 km. It served as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's capital for nearly 26 years before the capital moved to Raigad.

Bihar

Rohtasgarh Fort

Rohtasgarh, on a spur of the Kaimur plateau above the Son valley, is one of India's mightiest and least-visited forts — its walls run for miles around a summit reached by ancient stepped paths. Named for Rohitashva of the Harishchandra legend, it was seized by Sher Shah Suri in 1539 and later became the seat of Raja Man Singh, Akbar's governor of Bihar and Bengal, whose domed palace complex still crowns the plateau.

Tamil Nadu

Thirumayam Fort

Thirumayam's ring fort was built in 1687 by Vijaya Raghunatha Sethupathi of Ramanathapuram and later held by the Tondaiman rulers of Pudukkottai. Its concentric walls wrap a rocky hill in the heart of Chettinad, restored handsomely by the ASI, with a rock-cut Shiva shrine partway up. At the base stand the great twin temples of Sathyamurthi Perumal — with one of the largest reclining Vishnu images in Tamil Nadu carved into the rock — and Sathyagiriswarar.

Maharashtra

Torna Fort

Torna Fort (also called Prachandagad) sits near Velhe village in Pune district at 1,403 metres above sea level, the highest hill fort in the district. It is famed as the first fort captured by a young Shivaji Maharaj.

Delhi

Tughlaqabad Fort

Tughlaqabad is the colossal abandoned third city of Delhi, built by Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq in the 1320s and deserted within years — blamed by legend on the curse of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya: 'may it be inhabited only by herdsmen'. Its cyclopean sloping walls, sky-high bastions and ruined citadel stretch for kilometres of scrub, with the sultan's red-and-white tomb standing across the old causeway.

Maharashtra

Vijaydurg Fort

Vijaydurg Fort occupies a peninsula in Devgad taluka, Sindhudurg district, surrounded by the Arabian Sea on three sides, spanning roughly 17 acres and known as the "Eastern Gibraltar" for its role as the principal Maratha naval stronghold.

Jodhpur, Rajasthan

Mehrangarh Fort

Basgo, Leh & Ladakh

Basgo Fort

Chiktan, Leh & Ladakh

Chiktan Fort

Leh, Leh & Ladakh

Zorawar Fort

Chamba, Himachal Pradesh

Rang Mahal (Chamba Fort Palace)

Bardez, Goa

Reis Magos Fort

Tiracol, Goa

Fort Tiracol

Kolkata, West Bengal

Fort William

Buxar, Bihar

Buxar Fort

Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh

Allahabad Fort

Bardez, Goa

Chapora Fort

Chittorgarh, Rajasthan

Chittorgarh Fort

Aurangabad, Maharashtra

Daulatabad Fort

Akhnoor, Jammu & Kashmir

Akhnoor Fort

Udhampur, Jammu & Kashmir

Ramnagar Fort

Poonch, Jammu & Kashmir

Poonch Fort

Reasi, Jammu & Kashmir

Bhimgarh Fort

Basohli, Jammu & Kashmir

Basohli Fort

Rajouri, Jammu & Kashmir

Dhanidhar Fort

Leh, Leh & Ladakh

Namgyal Tsemo Fort

Tingmosgang, Leh & Ladakh

Tingmosgang Fort

Amer (Jaipur), Rajasthan

Amber Fort

Bundi, Rajasthan

Taragarh Fort (Bundi)

Bharatpur, Rajasthan

Lohagarh Fort

Nagaur, Rajasthan

Nagaur Fort (Ahhichatragarh)

Alwar, Rajasthan

Bala Quila (Alwar Fort)

Neemrana, Rajasthan

Neemrana Fort Palace

Khimsar, Rajasthan

Khimsar Fort

Jalore, Rajasthan

Jalore Fort

Khejarla, Rajasthan

Khejarla Fort

Kesroli (Alwar), Rajasthan

Hill Fort Kesroli

Lakhpat (Kutch), Gujarat

Lakhpat Fort

Bhuj, Gujarat

Bhujia Fort

Dabhoi, Gujarat

Dabhoi Fort

Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Bhadra Fort

Bharuch, Gujarat

Bharuch Fort

Surat, Gujarat

Surat Castle (Surat Fort)

Kanthkot (Kutch), Gujarat

Kanthkot Fort

Diu, Gujarat

Diu Fort

Roha (Kutch), Gujarat

Roha Fort

Mandvi (Kutch), Gujarat

Mandvi Fort Walls

Songadh, Gujarat

Songadh Fort

Harnai, Maharashtra

Suvarnadurg Fort

Pune district, Maharashtra

Purandar Fort

Kolhapur district, Maharashtra

Vishalgad Fort

Raisen, Madhya Pradesh

Raisen Fort

Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh

Madan Mahal Fort

Banda, Uttar Pradesh

Bhuragarh Fort (Banda)

Badami, Karnataka

Badami Fort

Bengaluru, Karnataka

Bangalore Fort

Belagavi, Karnataka

Belagavi Fort

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Fort St George

Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh

Kondapalli Fort

Rajsamand district, Rajasthan

Kumbhalgarh Fort

Murud, Maharashtra

Murud-Janjira Fort

Mahad, Maharashtra

Raigad Fort

Pune, Maharashtra

Sinhagad Fort

Vellore, Tamil Nadu

Vellore Fort

Uttar Pradesh

Agra Fort

Kasaragod, Kerala

Bekal Fort

Hyderabad, Telangana

Golconda Fort

Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh

Gwalior Fort

Jaipur, Rajasthan

Jaigarh Fort

Jaipur, Rajasthan

Nahargarh Fort

Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan

Ranthambore Fort

Delhi, Delhi

Red Fort