The Taj Mahal ( /ˈtɑːdʒ məˈhɑːl/; Hindi/Urdu [t̪ aːdʑ mɛɦəl][1] also "the Taj"; means "crown of

buildings"[2] in Urdu) is a mausoleum located in Agra, India. It is one of the most recognizable structures
in the world. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

Taj Mahal is considered to be the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements
from Persian, Islamic and Indian architectural styles.[3][4]

In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While the white domed marble
mausoleum is the most familiar component of the Taj Mahal, it is actually an integrated complex of
structures. The construction began around 1632 and was completed around 1653, employing thousands of
artisans and craftsmen.[5] The construction of the Taj Mahal was entrusted to a board of architects under
imperial supervision, including Abd ul-Karim Ma'mur Khan, Makramat Khan, and Ustad Ahmad Lahauri.
[6][7]
Lahauri[8] is generally considered to be the principal designer. [9]

Location: On the banks of river Yamuna in Agra

Taj Mahal of India - "the epitome of love", "a monument of immeasurable beauty". The beauty of
this magnificent monument is such that it is beyond the scope of words. The thoughts that come
into the mind while watching the Taj Mahal of Agra is not just its phenomenal beauty, but the
immense love which was the reason behind its construction. Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan got
this monument constructed in the memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, with whom he fell
in love at the first sight. The very first sight of the Taj Mahal, the epitome of love and romance
leaves one mesmerized.

Standing majestically on the banks of River Yamuna, the Taj Mahal is synonymous with love
and romance. It is believed that the name "Taj Mahal" was derived from the name of Shah
Jahan wife Mumtaz Mahal and means "Crown Palace". The purity of the white marble, the
exquisite ornamentation, precious gemstones used and its picturesque location, all make Taj
Mahal travel gain a place amongst the most popular ones. However, unless and until, one
knows the love story behind the Tajmahal of India, it will come up as just a beautiful building.
But, the love behind this outstanding monument is what has given a life to this monument.
The Taj Mahal is the epitome of Mughal art and one of the most famous buildings
in the world. Yet there have been few serious studies of it and no full analysis of its
architecture and meaning. Ebba Koch, an important scholar,  has been permitted to
take measurements of the complex and has been working on the palaces and
gardens of Shah Jahan for thirty years and on the Taj Mahal itself—the tomb of
the emperor's wife, Mumtaz Mahal—for a decade.

The tomb is the representation of the house of the queen in Paradise, and  its
setting was based on the palace gardens of the great nobles that lined both sides of
the river at Agra India.  You will explore the entire complex of the Taj Mahal with
an explanation of each building and an account of the mausoleum's urban setting,
its design and construction, its symbolic meaning, and its history up to the present
day.

Agra, once the capital of the Mughal Empire during the 16th and early 18th centuries, is one and
a half hours by express train from New Delhi. Tourists from all over the world visit Agra not to
see the ruins of the red sandstone fortress built by the Mughal emperors but to make a
pilgrimage to Taj Mahal, India’s most famous architectural wonder, in a land where magnificent
temples and edificies abound to remind visitors about the rich civilization of a country that is
slowly but surely lifting itself into an industrialized society.

The postcard picture of Taj Mahal does not adequately convey the legend, the poetry and the
romance that shroud what Rabindranath Tagore calls "a teardrop on the cheek of time". Taj
Mahal means "Crown Palace" and is in fact the most well preserved and architecturally beautiful
tomb in the world. It is best described by the English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, as "Not a piece of
architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in
living stones." It is a celebration of woman built in marble and that’s the way to appreciate it.

Taj Mahal stands on the bank of River Yamuna, which otherwise serves as a wide moat
defending the Great Red Fort of Agra, the center of the Mughal emperors until they moved their
capital to Delhi in 1637. It was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in 1631 in memory
of his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess. She died while accompanying
her husband in Burhanpur in a campaign to crush a rebellion after giving birth to their 14th child.
The death so crushed the emperor that all his hair and beard were said to have grown snow
white in a few months.

When Mumtaz Mahal was still alive, she extracted four promises from the emperor: first, that he
build the Taj; second, that he should marry again; third, that he be kind to their children; and
fourth, that he visit the tomb on her death anniversary. He kept the first and second promises.
Construction began in 1631 and was completed in 22 years. Twenty thousand people were
deployed to work on it. The material was brought in from all over India and central Asia and it
took a fleet of 1000 elephants to transport it to the site. It was designed by the Iranian architect
Ustad Isa and it is best appreciated when the architecture and its adornments are linked to the
passion that inspired it. It is a "symbol of eternal love".

The Taj rises on a high red sandstone base topped by a huge white marble terrace on which
rests the famous dome flanked by four tapering minarets. Within the dome lies the jewel-inlaid
cenotaph of the queen. So exquisite is the workmanship that the Taj has been described as
"having been designed by giants and finished by jewellers". The only asymmetrical object in the
Taj is the casket of the emperor which was built beside the queen’s as an afterthought. The
emperor was deposed by his son and imprisoned in the Great Red Fort for eight years but was
buried in the Taj. During his imprisonment, he had a view of the Taj.
As a tribute to a beautiful woman and as a monument for enduring love, the Taj reveals its
subtleties when one visits it without being in a hurry. The rectangular base of Taj is in itself
symbolic of the different sides from which to view a beautiful woman. The main gate is like a veil
to a woman’s face which should be lifted delicately, gently and without haste on the wedding
night. In indian tradition the veil is lifted gently to reveal the beauty of the bride. As one stands
inside the main gate of Taj, his eyes are directed to an arch which frames the Taj.

The dome is made of white marble, but the tomb is set against the plain across the river and it is
this background that works its magic of colours that, through their reflection, change the view of
the Taj. The colours change at different hours of the day and during different seasons. Like a
jewel, the Taj sparkles in moonlight when the semi-precious stones inlaid into the white marble
on the main mausoleum catch the glow of the moon. The Taj is pinkish in the morning, milky
white in the evening and golden when the moon shines. These changes, they say, depict the
different moods of woman.

Different people have different views of the Taj but it would be enough to say that the Taj has a
life of its own that leaps out of marble, provided you understand that it is a monument of love.
As an architectural masterpiece, nothing could be added or substracted from it.

Would you like to see some beautiful pictures of Taj Mahal ?

Geography

Rio de Janeiro lies on a strip of Brazil's Atlantic coast, close to the Tropic of Capricorn, where the
shoreline is oriented east–west. The city largely faces south. It was founded on an inlet of this stretch of
the coast, Guanabara Bay (Baía de Guanabara), the entrance to which is marked by a point of land called
Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açúcar), a "calling card" of the city.

The Centre "Centro," the core of Rio, lies on the plains of the western shore of Guanabara Bay. The
greater portion of the city, commonly referred to as the North Zone "Zona Norte," extends to the
northwest on plains composed of marine and continental sediments and on hills and several rocky
mountains. The South Zone "Zona Sul" of the city, reaching the beaches fringing the open sea, is cut off
from the Centre and from the North Zone by coastal mountains. These mountains and hills are offshoots
of the Serra do Mar to the northwest, an ancient gneiss-granite mountain chain that forms the southern
slopes of the Brazilian Highlands. The large West Zone "Zona Oeste," long cut off by the mountainous
terrain, had been made accessible by new roads and tunnels by the end of the 20th century.

The population of the city of Rio de Janeiro, occupying an area of 1,182.3 square kilometres (456.5
sq mi),[13] is about 6,100,000.[14] The population of the greater metropolitan area is estimated at 11–
13.5 million. It was Brazil's capital until 1960, when Brasília took its place. Residents of the city are
known as Cariocas. The official song of Rio is "Cidade Maravilhosa."

[edit] Climate

View of the city and the mountains.

Rio has a tropical savanna climate (Aw) according to the Köppen climate classification and is often
characterized by long periods of rain from December to March. [15] The temperature occasionally reaches
over 40 °C (104 °F) in inland areas of the city, and maximum temperatures above 28 °C (82 °F) occur on
a monthly basis. In the main tourist areas (south side, where the beaches are located), the temperature is
moderated by the cool sea-breezes from the Atlantic Ocean.
Along the coast, the breeze, blowing alternately onshore and offshore, modifies the temperature. Because
of its geographic situation, the city is often reached—especially during autumn and winter—by cold
fronts advancing from Antarctica, causing frequent weather changes. It is mostly in summer that strong
showers provoke catastrophic floods and landslides. The mountainous areas register greater rainfall since
they constitute a barrier to the humid wind that comes from the Atlantic.

The average annual minimum temperature is 20 °C (68 °F), the average annual maximum temperature is
28 °C (82 °F), and the average annual temperature is 23 °C (73 °F). The average yearly precipitation is
109 cm. According to INMET, the minimum temperature recorded was 8 °C (46 °F) in July; and the
absolute maximum was 41 °C (106 °F) in February. Temperatures below 10 °C (50 °F) are very rare in
the city. The temperature varies according to elevation, distance from the coast, and type of vegetation.
Winter brings mild temperatures and less rain than in the summer.

[edit] Cityscape

A panorama of Rio de Janeiro City taken from Corcovado. Beginning at the Sugar Loaf Mountain on the
far left to Humaita in the middle and Leblon at the far right.

[edit] History

Main articles: History of Rio de Janeiro and History of Brazil

Rio Branco Avenue in 1920.

Europeans first encountered Guanabara Bay on January 1, 1502 (hence Rio de Janeiro, "January River")
by a Portuguese expedition under explorer Gaspar de Lemos who was a captain of a ship in Pedro Álvares
Cabral's fleet. Allegedly the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci participated as observer at the
invitation of King Manuel I in the latter's expedition. The region of Rio was inhabited by the Tupi, Puri,
Botocudo and Maxakalí peoples.[17]

In 1555, one of the islands of Guanabara Bay, now called Villegagnon Island, was occupied by 500
French colonists under the French admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon. Consequently, Villegagnon
built Fort Coligny on the island when attempting to establish the France Antarctique colony.

The city of Rio de Janeiro proper was founded by the Portuguese on March 1, 1565. Until early in the
18th century, the city was threatened or invaded by several, mostly French, pirates and buccaneers, such
as Jean-François Duclerc and René Duguay-Trouin.[18]

Leblon in 1970.

Leblon today.

In the late 17th century, still during the Sugar Era, the Bandeirantes found gold and diamonds in the
neighboring captaincy of Minas Gerais, thus Rio de Janeiro became a much more practical port for
exporting wealth (gold, precious stones, besides the sugar) than Salvador, Bahia, which is much farther to
the northeast. And so in 1763, the colonial administration in Portuguese America was moved from
Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. The city remained primarily a colonial capital until 1808, when the
Portuguese royal family and most of the associated Lisbon nobles, fleeing from Napoleon's invasion of
Portugal, moved to Rio de Janeiro. The kingdom's capital was transferred to the city, which, thus, became
the only European capital outside of Europe. As there was no physical space or urban structure to
accommodate hundreds of noblemen who arrived suddenly, many inhabitants were simply evicted from
their homes.[19] There was a large influx of African slaves to Rio de Janeiro: in 1819, there were 145,000
slaves in the captaincy. In 1840, the number of slaves reached 220,000 people. [20]

When Prince Pedro I proclaimed the independence of Brazil in 1822, he decided to keep Rio de Janeiro as
the capital of his new empire. Rio continued as the capital of Brazil after 1889, when the monarchy was
replaced by a republic. Until the early years of the 20th century, the city was largely limited to the
neighborhood now known as the historic Downtown business district (see below), on the mouth of
Guanabara Bay. The city's center of gravity began to shift south and west to the so-called Zona Sul (South
Zone) in the early part of the 20th century, when the first tunnel was built under the mountains located
between Botafogo and the neighborhood now known as Copacabana. That beach's natural beauty,
combined with the fame of the Copacabana Palace Hotel, the luxury hotel of the Americas in the 1930s,
helped Rio to gain the reputation it still holds today as a beach party town (though, this reputation has
been somewhat tarnished in recent years by favela violence resulting from the narcotics trade [21]). Plans
for moving the nation's capital city to the territorial centre had been occasionally discussed, and when
Juscelino Kubitschek was elected president in 1955, it was partially on the strength of promises to build a
new capital.[22] Though many thought that it was just campaign rhetoric, Kubitschek managed to have
Brasília built, at great cost, by 1960. On April 21 that year the capital of Brazil was officially moved from
Rio de Janeiro to Brasília.

Between 1960 and 1975 Rio was a city-state under the name State of Guanabara (after the bay it borders).
However, for administrative and political reasons, a presidential decree known as "The Fusion" removed
the city's federative status and merged it with the State of Rio de Janeiro, the territory surrounding the city
whose capital was Niterói, in 1975. Even today, some Cariocas advocate the return of municipal
autonomy.[23][24]

The city hosted the 2007 Pan American Games and will host the 2014 FIFA World Cup final. It was
announced on October 2, 2009 that Rio would host the 2016 Olympic Games, beating the finalist
competitors Chicago, Tokyo, and Madrid. The city will become the first South American city to host the
event and the second Latin American city to host the games