GIT India

Kolkota is one of the cities in India that most tourists never visit. In large part this is because it is located a long ways a way from everything else that the tourists will visit. The other reason is that the history of the city is more British than Indian. That being said the city is definitely worth making the trip since it is a fairly unique part of India.

Kolkota is the third largest city in India, it used to be known as Calcutta and it is the largest and most dominant city in Eastern India. During the period when the British controlled India it was the capital city although they eventually found its location at the extreme east of the country to be a disadvantage and moved it to New Delhi. As a result Kolkota has lagged the rest of the country in terms of its economic development. However this has started to change as the government has made an effort to bring industry to the area.

There is evidence to suggest that the area where Kolkota is located has been inhabited for more than two thousand years but the city itself was founded by the British when they came to India in 1690. This gives the city a different look than you would get in most Indian cities as it was largely designed by the British. As a result most of the tourist attractions in Kolkota tend to revolve around the colonial period. That being said the city was also the center of India's independence movement so there is a great deal of history related to that as well.

Kolkota is located at the far east of the country in the Ganges Delta. The city is laid out in a bit of a strange way in that is it stretches a long way to follow the river but is quite narrow. This can make getting around a bit of a challenge since it is a long way from one end of the city to the other. The climate is tropical and it is hot year round. There is basically the dry season and the wet season, the wet season is a little bit cooler but the increased humidity mostly offsets this. Monsoons are common from June to September.

The economy of Kolkota has not really kept pace with the rest of the country, at least with the other big cities. A large percentage of the workforce still work in the informal sector of the economy with government employees making up the rest. In recent years however this has started to improve as the information technology sector has started to become important. Because of the slower growth of the economy the infrastructure in Kolkota has also not kept pace with that of other cities. The result is that the roads are more crowded and public transit not as good as you would find in other large Indian cities.