Current Time in Jūnāgadh, India

Jūnāgadh is a city in the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat in western India, lying at the foot of Girnar, a great volcanic massif whose peaks rise steeply above the plain to more than a thousand metres. The name means old fort, a reference to the citadel around which the town grew. Dry scrub and farmland surround the city, and the Gir forest, the last home of the Asiatic lion, begins a short distance to the south-east.

The population is around three hundred and twenty thousand. Jūnāgadh is the administrative centre of its district and a market town for groundnut, cotton, mango and wheat farming, with cement, textile and agricultural processing industries. Its significance, however, is overwhelmingly historical and religious, since few places in India carry so many layers of the past in such a small area.

The city's history reaches back more than two thousand years. Emperor Ashoka had his edicts carved here on a large granite boulder in the third century before the common era, and later rulers added inscriptions to the same rock, creating a record that spans eight hundred years. The Uparkot fortress on the hill above the town has been rebuilt many times since the Mauryan period and contains rock-cut Buddhist caves, enormous stepwells and ancient cisterns. The region passed through Kshatrapa, Gupta, Chudasama and Sultanate rule before becoming a princely state governed by Muslim Nawabs under British paramountcy. In 1947 the Nawab chose to accede to Pakistan despite a largely Hindu population and no shared border, a decision that led to his departure, a popular movement and a plebiscite that confirmed Jūnāgadh's place in India, one of the most contested episodes of partition.

The monuments are exceptional. The Mahabat Maqbara, a mausoleum of the Nawabs, combines Indo-Islamic domes with spiral staircases winding around its minarets in a design unlike anything else in India. The Uparkot caves and stepwells and the Ashokan rock edicts are within easy reach. Girnar itself is climbed by a stone stairway of nearly ten thousand steps, passing magnificent twelfth-century Jain temples before reaching Hindu shrines at the summit, and a ropeway now offers an alternative ascent. Sakkarbaug Zoo, founded in 1863, breeds Asiatic lions and is among the oldest in India.

Cultural life is shaped by pilgrimage. The Bhavnath fair, held at the foot of Girnar during Shivaratri, brings thousands of ascetics and worshippers for days of music and ritual, and the Jain and Hindu calendars fill the year with festivals. Gujarati folk music, kesar mangoes grown in the surrounding orchards and a strong vegetarian food culture round out the local character.

Transport is provided by railway connections to Rajkot and Ahmedabad, by good highways, and by airports at Rajkot and Keshod. Local buses serve Gir National Park and the coastal temple town of Somnath.

Junagadh Agricultural University is a major institution, alongside Bhakta Kavi Narsinh Mehta University and several colleges.

Jūnāgadh is important as an open-air museum of Indian history and as the natural base for visiting the lions of Gir.