Gates of Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, India

The walls of Ahmedabad and their gates were an impressive fortification that captured the attention of visitors after their construction in the late sixteenth/tenth century AH. The walls were made of brick and stone (brick being the more common material), were four to five feet thick and were equipped with half-round bastion towers throughout the perimeter of the city. The city walls incorporate the old citadel on the city's west side along the banks of the Sabarmati. The wall had eighteen arched gateways of varying size and detail. Beginning on the north side of the city in the center and moving clockwise around the perimeter, these are: Delhi Darwaza, Daryapur Darwaza, Preem Darwaza, Kalupur Darwaza, Panchkuva Darwaza, Sarangpur Darwaza, Raypur Darwaza, Astodia Darwaza, Mahudha Darwaza, Jamalpur Darwaza, Khan Jahan Darwaza, Raykhad Darwaza, Manek Darwaza, Ganesh Darwaza, Ram Darwaza, Baradari Darwaza, Khanpur Darwaza, and Shahpur Darwaza.1

The gates and walls were probably constructed after the Mughal annexation of the city in 1572/980 AH.2 Two gates, Preem Darwaza and Panchkuva Darwaza, date to the period of British rule when the railways were created in the 19th/13th century AH. The walls suffered greatly during the eighteenth/twelfth AH and nineteenth/thirteenth AH centuries because of flooding and then attacks on the city by the British, and were repaired during the nineteenth/thirteenth century AH. Today the city walls do not remain intact except in sections. The gates remain standing, but stand alone as monuments marking the limits of the historical city.

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