Tourism and World Heritage Sites of Rajasthan Notes

Rajasthan is the state that visitors associate with India: desert and dunes in the west, the Aravalli hills through the middle, lakes at Udaipur, and a fort on almost every hill. Tourism is therefore a major industry of the state and a regular source of questions in RPSC, RSMSSB, SSC and Railway papers. The questions are nearly always pairs: a monument and its town, a fort and its builder, a fair and its month, a city and its nickname. This note arranges the state's tourism on exactly those lines.

World Heritage inscriptions of Rajasthan

Four properties of the state were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List between 1985 and 2019. Keoladeo National Park at Bharatpur, a man-made wetland created by the rulers of Bharatpur and once famous as a winter home of migratory birds, was inscribed in 1985 and had already been recognised as a Ramsar wetland in 1981. The Jantar Mantar at Jaipur, the masonry observatory of Sawai Jai Singh II, was inscribed in 2010; its Vrihat Samrat Yantra is a giant stone sundial. The serial property called the Hill Forts of Rajasthan was inscribed in 2013 and covers six forts: Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh, Ranthambore in Sawai Madhopur, Amber near Jaipur, Jaisalmer and Gagron in Jhalawar. Finally, the walled city of Jaipur was inscribed in 2019 as an example of a planned eighteenth century town. Mehrangarh at Jodhpur and the Dilwara temples at Mount Abu, famous as they are, are not part of these inscriptions, and that is a favourite trap.

Forts and palaces

Jaipur itself was founded in 1727 by Sawai Jai Singh II and laid out by Vidyadhar Bhattacharya on a grid; it is called India's first planned city. The city was painted pink in 1876 for the visit of the Prince of Wales, which gave it the name Pink City. Albert Hall Museum in Jaipur is the oldest museum in the state.

Temples and places of pilgrimage

• Dilwara temples, Mount Abu: five Jain temples in white marble, the Vimal Vasahi dedicated to Adinath and the Luna Vasahi to Neminath, celebrated for their carved ceilings.
• Ranakpur, Pali district: the Chaumukha temple of Adinath, known for its forest of carved pillars.
• Brahma temple, Pushkar, Ajmer district: one of the very few temples of Brahma; the Pushkar fair is held beside the lake in Kartik.
• Ajmer Sharif, the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, where the Urs draws pilgrims of every faith.
• Karni Mata temple at Deshnoke in Bikaner, known for the rats that live in it; Shrinathji at Nathdwara; Eklingji near Udaipur; Mehandipur Balaji in Dausa; Salasar in Churu and Khatushyamji in Sikar.

Natural attractions, fairs and tourist trains

Mount Abu in Sirohi district is the only hill station of the state, and Guru Shikhar on it is the highest peak of the Aravalli range. Ranthambore in Sawai Madhopur and Sariska in Alwar are the best known tiger reserves and bring wildlife tourists; Sambhar, the large saline lake near Jaipur, is a Ramsar wetland recognised in 1990, and Keoladeo is the other. The Thar desert supplies camel safaris and dune tourism around Jaisalmer and Bikaner. The state's fairs are a tourist season of their own: the Pushkar camel fair at Kartik Purnima, the Desert Festival at Jaisalmer in the month of Magh, the Elephant Festival and Teej at Jaipur, the Mewar Festival at Udaipur, the Marwar Festival at Jodhpur and the Urs at Ajmer. Shekhawati, with its painted havelis in Jhunjhunu, Sikar and Churu, is called the open art gallery of Rajasthan, and the step well Chand Baori at Abhaneri in Dausa district is among the deepest in India. Luxury tourism runs on rails as well: the Palace on Wheels began in 1982 and the Royal Rajasthan on Wheels followed later, while the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation, set up in 1979, runs hotels and tours with the state's slogan of welcome, Padharo Mhare Desh.

Cities and their nicknames