Red Fort

The Red Fort is in Delhi, a very big city in India.

Its walls are tall and red. Long ago, an emperor lived inside with his court. Today, visitors walk through its gates and halls.

The Red Fort stands in Delhi, India's capital region. It was built as the palace of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, when he made Delhi his new capital. The first Mughal emperor, Babur, began his reign in 1526.

The fort is named for its massive walls of red sandstone. Inside them were halls where the emperor met his people, private rooms of white marble, gardens and a market. At its height, the emperor's court here housed about 3,000 people. Today it is a World Heritage Site together with an older fort next door, Salimgarh.

The Red Fort was the palace fort of Shahjahanabad, the capital that Shah Jahan, fifth Mughal emperor (reigned 1628–1658), moved from Agra to Delhi. ICOMOS describes it as the focal point of the planned city, at the end of its main axis and beside the Yamuna River, and notes that the court it housed reached some 3,000 people at its height.

UNESCO inscribed the Red Fort Complex in 2007: the Red Fort with the adjoining Salimgarh fort, built by Islam Shah Suri in 1546 on an island in the river and linked by a bridge. It regards the Red Fort as the zenith of Mughal creativity, a fusion of Islamic, Persian, Timurid and Hindu traditions whose planning and gardens influenced later buildings in Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra.

The big gate has two round-sided towers. On top are little white domes.

Inside is a covered market. A stream of water once flowed through the palace rooms.

Visitors and the emperor himself came in through the Lahori Gate, the grand main entrance. It has three stories between two towers, topped by a row of seven arches with small white domes and two slim towers called minarets. Soldiers and workers used the Delhi Gate.

Inside the Lahori Gate is the Chhatta Chowk, a covered market street. Next comes the Drum House, where musicians played to welcome important arrivals, then the Hall of Public Audience, where the emperor sat on a throne under a marble canopy. Beyond it, a row of white marble palace buildings was linked by a water channel that flowed through them all.

ICOMOS describes the walls with bastions topped by domed kiosks and two principal gates: the Lahori Gate, the ceremonial entrance for visitors and the emperor, of three stories between two semi-octagonal towers crowned by a seven-arch arcade with white domes and two minarets; and the Delhi Gate, used mainly by soldiers and staff. The photo shows a gate with these features.

The Lahori Gate opens into Chhatta Chowk, a vaulted arcade once the palace market, leading to the three-story Naubat Khana (Drum House), beyond which only princes could ride. The Diwan-i-Am is an open hall of pillars on a raised plinth, with a nine-arched front; the throne stood under a marble canopy inlaid with semi-precious stones. The white marble pavilions along the river were joined by the Nahr-i-Bihisht water channel, decorated differently in each building.

At night, lights make the red walls glow.

People come from all over to visit. Workers take care of the old stones.

Today the Red Fort is looked after by the Archaeological Survey of India, the government group that protects India's important old places. It is a monument of national importance, protected by law.

The fort no longer stands right beside the river. Over time the Yamuna River moved east, and a road now runs where the water once flowed between the Red Fort and Salimgarh. UNESCO says more work is needed to keep the old buildings stable and to make sure the many visitors do not wear them down.

The complex is a monument of national importance under India's ancient monuments law and is managed directly by the Archaeological Survey of India, which took it over from the army in December 2003. ICOMOS reported in 2007 that it drew several million visitors a year. UNESCO notes that conservation has improved but that much more work is needed to stabilize the property and keep visitors from contributing to its decay.

The largest changes to its setting came when the Yamuna shifted east (its old line between the two forts is now the Inner Delhi Ring Road) and when a railway divided Salimgarh. The photo shows a main gate lit at dusk, its two towers and domed kiosks glowing against the evening sky.