Ahmedabad added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list
Ahmedabad beats New Delhi and Mumbai for the heritage city title
The city’s architecture, co-existence of various communities were considered to award the tag
The city’s architecture, co-existence of various communities were considered to award the tag
The World Heritage Committee had inscribed three cultural sites in India, Cambodia and China. This decision has made the 600-year-old city of Ahmedabad to join the ranks with Paris, Vienna, Cairo, Brussels, Rome and Edinburgh and put India on the world heritage city map.
Ahmedabad has been declared as the World Heritage City at the 41st session of World Heritage Committee. The 41st session of the World Heritage Committee, meeting in Krakow, Poland, through July 12, has inscribed 21 new sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Among these were 18 cultural and three natural sites. In addition to the new inscriptions, the Committee also approved five site boundary changes.
The walled city of Ahmedabad, founded by Sultan Ahmad Shah in the 15th century, on the eastern bank of the Sabarmati River, presents a rich architectural heritage from the Sultanate period, notably the Bhadra citadel, the walls and gates of the Fort city and numerous mosques and tombs as well as important Hindu and Jain temples of later periods. The urban fabric is made up of densely-packed traditional houses (pols) in gated traditional streets (puras) with characteristic features such as bird feeders, public wells and religious institutions. The city continued to flourish as the capital of the state of Gujarat for six centuries, up to the present.
The nomination of Ahmedabad was supported by close to 20 countries, including Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia, Portugal, Peru, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Finland, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Korea, Croatia, Angola, Cuba, and the host country of the UNESCO session, Poland.
Just inscribed as @UNESCO #WorldHeritage Site: Historic City of Ahmadabad #India https://t.co/ztbb8RIMiZ #41whc pic.twitter.com/iRIMoQfAtK
— UNESCO (@UNESCO) July 8, 2017
The declaration was hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
A matter of immense joy for India! https://t.co/qtCOxm8Kga
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 9, 2017
