Kolkata (Formerly Calcutta), the capital of West Bengal and the nerve centre of the eastern part of India, is, with over 10.5 million inhabitants, the largest city in India and second only to London in the world. Once the capital of British India it was the hub of the Raj's business and industry, as well as being the city where the fashionable thronged for entertainment.

It is still an important centre of art and culture - the country's foremost painters, writers, musicians and dancers and playwrights hail from this part of India.

Kolkata University is probably the oldest in India (not considering ancient ones like Nalanda University) and has fostered many famous scientists, scholars, educationists, economists and statesmen. Nobel Prize winners C.V. Raman and Satyen Bose were students of Kolkata University. Situated on College street facing College square, the new sky scraper building has replaced the historical senate house.

Kolkata is located at the mouth of an estuary, where the river Hooghly enters the Bay of Bengal. The climate is hot and humid with a short-lived winter and a long and heavy monsoon. The character of Kolkata is essentially British Raj, especially the older areas, with their splendid classical buildings, gardens, parks and squares.

The heart of the city, Dalhousie Square, renamed Benoy-Badal-Dinesh Bagh, is a busy quadrangle with a water body in the centre, and surrounded by imposing, intricately detailed colonial buildings - the General Post Office, Life Insurance Building, Bank Head-offices, Government Offices and Mercantile Houses - that are reminiscent of the business district in London. Around the square the pavements and roads reverberate with the unending flow of traffic and people - the city is notorious for crowds traffic snarls.

Nearby, the High Court, one of the oldest in India, (1872) is built in characteristic Gothic style, complete with a 54m high tower. But pride of place (geographically and historically) belongs to Chowringhee, the wide, business avenue of fashionable shops, cinemas, restaurants and offices, facing the green meadows of the Maidan.

The Maidan is the lung of the city and again, is a legacy of British town planning. Like Hyde Park, it stretches over a vast expanse right in the centre of the city, and is dotted with tanks, monuments, clubs and exhibition spots where numerous events take place round the year. It is the venue of the city's favourite sports - cricket and football, and in season the visitor can see several spirited matches taking place.

The famous Eden Gardens, the cricket aficionado's paradise, is situated at one end of the Maidan, and at the other end, overlooking Chowringhee, is the famous Victoria Memorial hall, (1905) a marble monument fashioned after the Taj.

Behind the Memorial is the historic and fashionable Royal Kolkata Turf Club, which holds some of the most prestigious races in the country. On the western side of the Maidan is Fort William planned and built by Sir John Goldsborough, the then Commissioner General and Chief Governor of the Company's Settlement. It overlooks the river Hooghly, alongside which the Strand is a popular promenade.

Visitors an take a ride in a horse-drawn carriage along the road beside the Memorial or in a historic tram or in a train in the circular railway or in a hand-drawn rickshaw or on a boat on the river Hooghly. And of course they must not miss out on the privilege of taking a ride on the country's only underground train system - the Metro.

People from all over the country love to shop in Kolkata because of the variety of handlooms it offers, especially in sarees - Tangial cotton, Dacca weaves, silks from Mushidabad and Bishnupur. Kolkata is too the home of the famous Bengal sweets, and a wonderful variety of fish preparations. A good time to visit is during the festive Durga Puja in September-October, when the city is at its sparkling best, and the visitor can participate in its great and enduring culture.

In 1690 Job Charnock, an agent of the East India Company chose Kolkata's unlikely, swampy site for a British Trade Settlement. Large villages along the east bank of the river Ganges, namely the Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikutta formed the nucleus of the present city of Kolkata. City building was completed in 1700 AD. Its geographical position has given Kolkata both National and International importance.

Because of coal, iron and mica mines as well as the jute fields and tea plantations located in the surrounding areas, jute mills, paper mills, oil mills, iron and steel foundries were established. Tanneries and printing presses sprung up along the bank of the river Hooghly, and large tea auction houses came up in the city. With these industries and trading houses Kolkata became a commercial hub.

It retained its importance till the British shifted their capital to New Delhi. Since independence political unrest and has elided the influence it once wielded in India.