Bhopal

History

According to folklore, Bhopal was founded in the 11th century by the Paramara king Bhoja, who ruled from his capital at Dhar. This theory states that Bhopal was originally known as Bhojpal after a dam (pal) constructed by the king's minister. According to yet another version, Raja Bhoj suffered from leprosy. His physician advised him to build a lake with water from 365 rivers and take daily bath in it. When such a lake was built, it was called Bhoj Tal [or Bhoj's lake]. Gradually people started calling the city Bhojpal, and finally Bhopal. In the early 17th century, Bhopal was a small village in the Gond kingdom. The modern Bhopal city was established by Dost Mohammad Khan (1660–1726), a Pashtun soldier in the Mughal army. After the death of the emperor Aurangzeb, Khan started providing mercenary services to local chieftains in the politically unstable Malwa region. In 1709, he took on the lease of Berasia estate and later annexed several territories in the region to establish the Bhopal State. Khan received the territory of Bhopal from the Gond queen Kamlapati in lieu of payment for mercenary services and usurped her kingdom after her death. In the 1720s, he built the Fatehgarh fort in the village, which developed into the city of Bhopal over the next few decades. The area of Malwa which also included Bhopal and nearby regions came under Maratha control after the combined armies of Mughal-Nizam-Nawab were decisively defeated in Battle of Bhopal (1737) by the great Peshwa Bajirao I. The state was founded in 1707 by Dost Mohammad Khan, a Pashtun soldier in the Mughal army, who became a mercenary after the Emperor Aurangzeb's death and annexed several territories to his fiefdom. It came under the suzerainty of the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1723 shortly after its…

Geography

Bhopal has an average elevation of 500 metres (1,401 ft) and is located in the central part of India, just north of the upper limit of the Vindhya mountain ranges. Located on the Malwa plateau, it is higher than the north Indian plains and the land rises towards the Vindhya Range to the south. The city has uneven elevation and has small hills within its boundaries. The prominent hills in Bhopal are the Idgah, Arera and Shyamala hills in the northern region, together with the Katara hills in the southern region. There are 17 lakes and 5 reservoirs biggest of them are upper lake ([https://m.bharatdiscovery.org/india/%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BC%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%AC,_%E0%A4%AD%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2 Bada Talab]) and lower lake. The Upper Lake was built in the 11th century and has a surface area of 36 km2 and catchment area of 361 km2 while the Lower Lake has a surface area of 1.29 km2 and catchment area of 9.6 km2. Recently, Bhopal Municipal Corporation came with a resolution to involve local citizens in cleaning, conserving and maintaining the lakes. Bhopal city is divided into two parts where one part which is near the VIP road and lake is Old Bhopal (north) and the other, New Bhopal (south), where malls are mainly situated. List of pin codes from Bhopal is 462001 to 462050 which comes under Bhopal postal division (Bhopal Region). Bhopal has a humid subtropical climate (Cwa), with cool, dry winters, a hot summer and a humid monsoon season. Summers start in late March and go on until mid-June, the average temperature being around 30 °C (86 °F), with the peak of summer in May, when the highs regularly exceed 40 °C (104 °F). Extreme high in May was 46.7 °C on 19 May 2016,…

Most-observed species

• Red-vented Bulbul

  Pycnonotus cafer (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,808
• Red-wattled Lapwing

  Vanellus indicus (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  2,407
• Laughing Dove

  Spilopelia senegalensis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,403
• Black Drongo

  Dicrurus macrocercus Vieillot, 1817 · Aves
  2,274
• Purple Sunbird

  Cinnyris asiaticus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  2,177
• White-throated Kingfisher

  Halcyon smyrnensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,886
• Rock Pigeon

  Columba livia J.F.Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  1,854
• Saxicoloides fulicatus (Linnaeus, 1766)

  Saxicoloides fulicatus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,783