Chandigarh

 ( Planned Capitals ) 

Chandigarh is a city and union territory in northwestern India, serving as the shared capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana. Situated near the foothills of the Sivalik range of Himalayas, it borders Haryana to the east and Punjab in the remaining directions. Chandigarh constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which also includes the adjacent Satellite city of Panchkula in Haryana and Mohali in Punjab. It is located 260 km (162 miles) northwest of New Delhi and 229 km (143 miles) southeast of Amritsar and 104 km (64 miles) southwest of Shimla.

Chandigarh is one of the earliest planned cities in post-independence India and is internationally known for its architecture and urban design. The master plan of the city was prepared by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, which built upon earlier plans created by the Polish architect Maciej Nowicki and the American planner Albert Mayer. Most of the government buildings and housing in the city were designed by a team headed by Le Corbusier and British architects Dame Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. Chandigarh's Capitol Complex—as part of a global ensemble of Le Corbusier's buildings—was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO at the 40th session of the World Heritage Conference in July 2016.

Chandigarh has grown greatly since its initial construction, and has also driven the development of Mohali and Panchkula; the tri-city metropolitan area has a combined population of over 1,611,770. The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country. The union territory has the third-highest Human Development Index among Indian states and territories. In 2015, a survey by LG Electronics ranked it as the happiest city in India on the happiness index. In 2015, an article published by the BBC identified Chandigarh as one of the few master-planned cities in the world to have succeeded in terms of combining monumental architecture, cultural growth, and modernisation.

The motif or sobriquet of "The City of Beauty" was derived from the City Beautiful movement, which was a popular philosophy in North American urban planning during the 1890s and 1900s. Architect Albert Mayer, the initial planner of Chandigarh, lamented the American rejection of City Beautiful concepts and declared, "We want to create a beautiful city".

The loss of Lahore, the need for the rehabilitation of refugees from Pakistan and a mounting exodus of business communities from the state created a sense of urgency. Shimla, the former summer capital of both British India and the Punjab province, partially housed the government of East Punjab state. Shimla’s inability to fully contain the administrative machinery resulted in government offices to be scattered at several places across the state, imposing difficulties and costs on the public as well as the government.

The new capital needed to have enough space for government machinery, for resettlement of refugees and their businesses, for expansion, and adequate rail, road and air connectivity; it also had to assuage the psychological loss of partition, its construction supposed to stimulate the state's devastated economy, as well as being a 'symbolic gesture' of unity, stability, and an assertion of India’s newfound sovereignty. India’s erstwhile Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru personally endorsed the project, remarking: The capital was to be located in the most populous part of the state, between the Doaba and , and projected to hold about 500,000 people. Several existing cities and towns across the state were considered for the possible development of the new capital, but all rejected for different reasons. Political lobbying also made the selection of an existing city as the new capital difficult. The absence of political consensus on the location of the new capital and the large costs involved threatened the project. In 1948, three possible sites were settled upon, one lying in the Ambala district, one in Ludhiana, and one, the most preferred of the three, being partially in Ambala and PEPSU (which was then not part of the East Punjab state). The first site, in Ambala district’s Kharar tehsil, was ultimately selected to be the location of the new capital after aerial reconnaissance by Parmeshwari Lal Varma and Prem Nath Thapar. The name of the new city derived from a temple dedicated to Hindu goddess Chandi present in one of these villages. The location was praised by the later team of the city's architects for being beautiful and practical.

Agricultural lands, including large , of fifty-eight villages with a population of 21,000 people were to be affected by the construction of the city, involving the displacement of many of them. The affected villagers, encouraged and supported by political parties (such as the Socialist Party and Akali Dal), began agitating against the project. Political opposition to the project also stemmed from a desire for relocation of the new capital to sites favourable to the opponents. The government reached an agreement with the affected villagers in October 1950, and established a local committee to advise on rehabilitation of displaced people, thus ending the agitation.

Mayer produced a fan-shaped plan, spreading southward between the Patiala-ki-rao and Sukhna Cho streams, with the located on a promontory in Sukhna's River fork at the upper margin, a university at the very north, a railway station to the east, an industrial area to the southeast and a commercial block in the center. The city was to be made up of several neighbourhood units, or superblocks, arranged in districts of various shapes roughly one-by-half kilometre in size, each containing residences, bazaar, schools, parks, health centres, theatres and meeting halls. The superblocks were to be arranged in a curvilinear street layout with adequate road space for future motor traffic. Mayer’s plan was based on the ideals of the Garden City movement and the Radburn idea.

While Mayer provided a masterplan and Nowicki gave a detailed draft for one neighbourhood unit, Chandigarh also required an architect to develop the architectural design of the city and its structures. Nowicki had also prepared a preliminary design for the capitol complex, and had agreed to join the city's architectural development independently of Mayer. In August 1950, Nowicki died in a plane crash, and Mayer was unlikely to be able to execute the masterplan without his assistance. This, coupled with Mayer's extended leaves from the state and mounting expenses due to adverse USD exchange rates, resulted in Mayer—who was still keen on continuing the project—being dropped from the plan.

Although told to adhere to Mayer’s masterplan, the new team considered it inadequate and made significant modifications, much to Mayer's dismay as he tried in vain to retain it. Corbusier assumed control of the masterplan and designed buildings of the capitol complex, while the rest of the team directed construction work and designed other buildings of the city. Key components of the previous plan were incorporated into the new one—the positions of the central commercial block, the railway station, the industrial area, and the capitol complex remained roughly similar; the University was moved to the west, the superblocks were retained, but expanded, standardised and named 'sectors'. The overall density was increased by 20%. The earlier curvilinear street plan was replaced with a grid plan, with a seven-tiered road system consisting the highway, the central axes, arterial roads, market roads, sector circulation roads, residential streets and pedestrian walkways. The new plan was quickly accepted by officials.

The capitol complex was designed to contain four main buildings: the Palace of Assembly, the High Court of Justice, the Secretariat, and a fourth structure—earlier the Governor’s Palace and later Museum of Knowledge—whose construction was deferred. Also included in it were several monuments, notably the Monument of the Open Hand. Initial plan envisioned the capitol complex to dominate the city, but in later plans artificial hills were used to visually separate the two. It was to be independent India's 'answer' to the British built complex in New Delhi. The city centre was designed by Corbusier to contain commercial and administrative buildings with a central pedestrian plaza.

A committee was set up under Mohinder Singh Randhawa for landscaping of the city, and an elaborate landscaping plan was devised. In 1954, the Panjab University, which had been functioning in a widely scattered area until then, purchased over 300 acres of land in sector 14 where a self-contained permanent campus was built for it in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The 1956 merger of PEPSU with the Punjab state shot up construction costs due to requirements of extra offices and housing in the city, and caused revisions in the assembly building’s design. In the 1960s, a PGIMER and college of engineering were established in sector 12, two government colleges, one for men and one for women, were built in sector 11, and a polytechnic institute was created in sector 26. The Chandi Mandir military cantonment and an industrial township in Pinjore were built to the northeast of the city, despite objections from Corbusier. During excavations for the city’s construction in the 1950s and 60s, artefacts, a cemetery and a settlement belonging to the Indus Valley civilisation were discovered around present-day sector 17.

Sector 22 was the first sector to be developed. The large population of construction workers that came to build the city lived in self-built small mud or brick shacks during this period. 13 types of government housing, from the Chief Minister’s to those for low income employees, were developed by Fry, Drew and Jeanneret. Following the departure of Fry and Drew, some house types were also developed by Jeet Malhotra, Manmohan Nath Sharma, Aditya Prakash and Eulie Chowdhury. Jeanneret, Chowdhury and others also designed several types of furniture influenced by local craftsmanship for use in the city’s public buildings, which were manufactured from local hardwood by carpenters across northern India. Jeanneret was appointed chief architect and town planner for Chandigarh and lived in the city until 1965.

The Secretariat was the first of the capitol complex buildings to be completed. The High Court became functional in March 1955, although modifications and additions to it continued till later. The Assembly building containing two legislative chambers enclosed within a square exterior—a hyperbolic assembly chamber and a pyramid-topped council chamber—was completed in 1962. A ceremonial door hand painted by Corbusier was installed at the Assembly Building in 1964. Work on foundations of the fourth building set against the hills to complete the architectural composition of the complex, initially designed to be the governor’s residence (which was disapproved by Nehru for being 'undemocratic') and changed later to a museum, was begun in the 1960s but the structure was never built. Two of the six monuments planned in the Capitol Complex remain incomplete. These include Geometric Hill and Martyrs Memorial. Drawings were made, and they were begun in 1956, but they were never completed. Corbusier remained committed to Chandigarh’s development until his death in 1965.

The administration of the union territory, which also included 34 villages adjacent to the city, came under the direct control of the union government, and the city became the centre of three governments. Periodic unofficial reports after the reorganisation suggested that the people of Chandigarh wanted the city to stay a union territory. According to a 1982 survey, 80% of the city’s residents preferred it staying a UT. In 1985, terms of an unimplemented wider accord granted the city to the state of Punjab, with Haryana slated to get 70,000 acres of land from Punjab in return.

By 1971, 11–15% of Chandigarh’s population was living in illegal settlements. Transit colonies for slum-dwellers were set up on the margins of the city, becoming permanent with time. In the 1970s, city officials discovered a sculpture park built by public works employee and artist Nek Chand who had been secretly building it since 1957 using various materials—rocks found in the hills and waterbodies around the city, discarded materials from pre-existing villages, and waste generated by the city’s construction—on a piece of forest land adjacent to the capitol complex. The park was named 'Rock Garden' and inaugurated in 1976, receiving national and international attention in the 1980s. In the late 1980s and 1990s, attempts by the city authorities to demolish the garden were thwarted by public protests.

Funding for the Open Hand monument, whose construction had been delayed due to financial constraints, was sanctioned in 1972. It was completed in 1985 and the motif was adopted and vigorously promoted as the official symbol of the city in the 1980s, with smaller monuments containing the icon built at other places such that the sign became ubiquitous in the city.

The city is surrounded by several that depend on it for services and facilities. Punjab built the town of Mohali in an area originally set aside for greenbelt southwest of Chandigarh, and Haryana developed Panchkula to the city’s southeast (in addition to the already built Chandimandir cantonment to its east), both with the aim of reinforcing their claims on the city. The villages in the union territory saw rapid urbanisation. In the late 1970s and 1980s, efforts were made towards more integrated regional urban planning in the wider Chandigarh Capital Region.

The city, lying in the northern plains, includes a vast area of flat, fertile land. Its northeast covers sections of Bhabar, while the remainder of its terrain is part of the Terai. Its surrounding cities are Mohali, New Chandigarh, Patiala, Zirakpur and Rupnagar in Punjab, and Panchkula and Ambala in Haryana.

Chandigarh is situated 44 km (28 miles) north of Ambala, 229 km (143 miles) southeast of Amritsar, and 250 km (156 miles) north of Delhi.

The city experiences the following seasons and the respective average temperatures:

• Spring: During spring (from February-end to mid-April), temperatures vary between a maximum of and a minimum of .
• Autumn: In autumn (from September-end to mid-November), the temperature may rise to a maximum of . Temperatures usually remain between in autumn. The minimum temperature is around .
• Summer: The temperature in summer (from mid-April to mid-June) usually peaks at around in mid-June, and generally varies between .
• Monsoon: During the monsoon season (from mid-June to mid-September), Chandigarh receives moderate to heavy rainfall and sometimes heavy to very heavy rainfall (generally during August or September). Usually, the rain-bearing monsoon winds blow from the southwest/southeast. The city mostly receives heavy rain from the south (which is mainly persistent rain), but it generally receives most of its rain during the monsoon season either from the northwest or the northeast. The maximum amount of rain received by the city of Chandigarh during the monsoon season is in a single day.
• Winter: Winters (November-end to February-end) are mild but can get chilly during peak winter weeks. Average temperatures in the winter generally fluctuate between a maximum of and a minimum of . Rain usually comes from the west during winter, and it rains for 2–3 days, sometimes with hailstorms.

Chandigarh has been ranked 27th best "National Clean Air City" (under Category 1 >10L Population cities) in India.

File:Peacock at Leisure Valley, Chandigarh.jpg|alt=Peacock at Leisure Valley, Chandigarh|Peacock at Leisure Valley, Chandigarh File:Junglefowl, Sukhna wildlife sanctuary, Chandigarh, India.JPG|Junglefowl, Sukhna wildlife sanctuary, Chandigarh File:Sambar deer in City Forest Park,Chandigarh.jpg|Sambar deer in City Forest Park, Chandigarh Two parrots at parrot bird sanctuary, Chandigarh, India.jpg|Parakeets at the Parrot Bird Sanctuary File:Nilgai, Dhanas Lake, Chandigarh 03.jpg|Nilgai, Dhanas lake, Chandigarh

Chandigarh has a belt of parks running from sectors. It is known for its green belts and other special tourist parks. Sukhna Lake itself hosts the Garden of Silence. The Rock Garden, is located near the Sukhna Lake and has numerous sculptures made by using a variety of different discarded waste materials. The Zakir Hussain Rose Garden (which is also Asia's largest rose garden) contains nearly 825 varieties of roses in it and more than 32,500 varieties of other medicinal plants and trees. Other gardens include the Garden of Fragrance in Sector 36, Garden of Palms in Sector 42, Butterfly Park in Sector 26, Valley of Animals in Sector 49, the Japanese Garden in Sector 31 which is designed in traditional Japanese style and known for its peaceful atmosphere, the Terraced Garden in Sector 33, Shanti Kunj Garden, the Botanical garden and the Bougainvillea Garden. There is also the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh in Sector 10.

India census, Chandigarh had a population of 1,055,450, giving it a density of about 9,252 (7,900 in 2001) persons per square kilometre.
     

Males constitute 55% of the population and females 45%. The sex ratio is 818 females for every 1,000 males. The child-sex ratio is 880 females per thousand males. Chandigarh has an effective literacy rate of 86.77% (based on population 7 years and above), higher than the national average; with male literacy of 90.81% and female literacy of 81.88%. 10.8% of the population is under 6 years of age. The population of Chandigarh formed 0.09 per cent of India in 2011.

There has been a substantial decline in the population growth rate in Chandigarh, with just 17.10% growth between 2001 and 2011. Since the 1951–1961 period, the growth rate has decreased from 394.13% to 17.10%, a likely cause being the rapid urbanisation and development in neighbouring cities. The urban population constitutes 97.25% of the total and the rural population makes up 2.75%, as there are only a few villages within Chandigarh, situated on its Western and South-Eastern border, and the majority of people live in the heart of Chandigarh.