ગુજરાતી
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What the Old City is Like
Ahmedabad, December 4, 2025
Ahmedabad was founded on February 26, 1411. It has preserved its rich heritage.
More than 5500 heritage walks have been conducted so far, offering unique insights into the city’s architecture, art, religious sites, and living traditions of its bridges. Heritage walks are conducted in the morning and at night.
The heritage route, started in 2016, includes bridges, heritage structures, heritage food, heritage havelis (mansions), and sacred historical religious sites such as dargahs, temples, and mosques.
‘Heritage Walk Ahmedabad’ was initiated by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and Akshar Travel Group. It attracted 60,000 people in just two years. A fee is charged for participation.
The heritage walk covers 20 locations.
Other Walks
‘Meet Me at Khadia’ was started by Ashish Mehta in 2015, where people take pictures of the streets of Ahmedabad together. There is also a food walk. Participants are taken to different places in Ahmedabad. Discussions on heritage take place through tea parties. There were 5,000 houses and public temples in the lanes of Ahmedabad. There are 115 old Jain temples. Private individuals conduct separate walks for these.
2025
A Heritage Conservation Committee and a Heritage Department exist for the repair, restoration, and conservation of heritage homes and historical sites in the outskirts of the city. To promote tourism in Ahmedabad at a global level, the city’s heritage will be branded. A tourism gateway will be created.
There has been an announcement to make old Ahmedabad look like Europe. The streets of the heritage walk will be made to resemble European streets. All buildings will be painted in the same color.
The heritage walk runs 365 days a year. The walkway upgrade work has now begun to make this walking route, which runs from Kalupur Swaminarayan Temple to Jama Masjid, more beautiful and organized. The facades of the shops along the road have also been renovated with a uniform design to give the entire route a consistent modern and traditional look.
Renovation work is also being carried out on hospitals, schools, government institutions, wall art projects, and private havelis (mansions).
The Ahmedabad World Heritage City Trust will prepare a traffic mobility plan.
Bhadra Fort, the walled city, contains walls, gates, mosques, and tombs, as well as Hindu and Jain temples.
Traditional houses and pols (residential clusters) are also preserved within the city’s structure, along with smaller havelis.
What’s on the Walk
The Ahmedabad Heritage Walk refers to the ‘Heritage Walk’ of Ahmedabad.
Here you will find pols, old houses, houses with beautiful windows, underground sewers, and large water tanks for drinking and monsoon water harvesting. Dodia ni Haveli is particularly attractive. There are houses with large windows.
Chabutara (Bird Feeder)
There are pols here. There are small hollow spaces for birds to safely perch.
Mysterious Passages
In case of an attack on the city, there are secret passages within the pols. Passages leading from one pol to another.
Most of the residents of the pols were small and large traders.
Foreign Art
Most of the houses in the pols are made of strong Burmese wood. Traders who traveled abroad would bring back items to decorate their homes. They would also have things made locally. That is why houses of different styles are seen in the pols. Maratha, Indo-European style, British Colonial style, Chinese, and Persian style houses can be seen in the same lane.
Water Tanks
There is a system for storing rainwater. The water is stored in a large tank through a large copper pipe. There are also stairs to descend into the tank. The water remains fresh for years. Haveli
Harkunwar Sethani’s 60-room haveli is an example of Indo-Chinese architecture. 600 years ago, a small branch of the Sabarmati River, the Manek River, flowed through the middle of the haveli.
Commercial City
There is a dilapidated office of the Unit Trust of India here. The colonies were mostly inhabited by traders and artisans.
Business and Home
A shop on the upper floor and a shop on the lower floor. Work from home has been a long-standing practice. All family members could help in the work and lived in the business premises.
Muhurat Pol
Ahmedabad’s oldest and first pol (neighborhood) is Muhurat Pol. The Ahmedabad Stock Exchange is located here, built in 1894 in British architecture. The Swastika symbol was used as the logo. After the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Ahmedabad Stock Exchange is the oldest stock exchange in India.
Manek Chowk
Manek Chowk is a jewelry market during the day and a food market at night. It is open 24 hours a day. There is a temple of Maneknath here. Muhurat Pol, Badshah no Hajiro, and Rani no Hajiro are located in Manek Chowk.
Business
Many heritage houses in the pol have now been converted into homestays.
Religious Places
The Kala Ramji Temple is located here.
32 idols in the temple are made of red marble from Ratikar mountain, 16 idols from red marble of Dadhi Mukh mountain, and dark stone from Ajaygiri mountain of Nandishwar Island. The temple is made of marble. The temple is a combination of Hindu and Jain architectural styles.
There are sculptures of humans dancing and playing musical instruments, animals, and floral vines.
The heritage walk, which starts from the temple, ends at the Jama Masjid. Built of yellow stones, the Jama Masjid is a fine example of Indo-Islamic architecture. The mosque was built by Emperor Ahmed Shah I. It features Arabic calligraphy. The mosque shows influences of Hindu and Jain architectural styles, which are found only in Champaner and Ahmedabad in India. There is a separate seating area for women to offer prayers.
Arrangements are in place.
UNESCO
On July 8, 2017, Ahmedabad was declared India’s first ‘World Heritage City’ by UNESCO. Ahmedabad was once known as the ‘Venice of the East’ and the ‘Manchester of the East’.
Dholavira, Rani ki Vav, Champaner, and Ahmedabad are symbols of Gujarat’s cultural richness on the UNESCO list.
These countries unanimously chose Ahmedabad because it is a secular city where Islamic, Hindu, and Jain communities live together.
Ahmedabad’s nomination received support from 20 countries, including Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia, Portugal, Peru, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Finland, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Croatia, Poland, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Korea, Angola, and Cuba.
In 1984, the Ford Foundation initiated the first study to protect the city’s historical heritage.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation started a heritage walk from the Kalupur Swaminarayan Temple. A heritage cell was also created.
On March 31, 2011, Ahmedabad was included in the provisional list of UNESCO World Heritage Cities. The work of preparing the Ahmedabad dossier was started by Professor Ravindra Vasavada of CEPT University.
Ahmedabad made efforts to secure a place as a World Heritage City. The draft dossier prepared by Prof. Vasavada was once sent back by UNESCO.
There were 26 other cultural cities competing with Ahmedabad. Delhi and Odisha were also on the list from India.
Ahmedabad city is in the club of cities like Paris, Cairo, and Edinburgh. There are 287 World Heritage cities in the world, including Bhaktapur in Nepal and Galle in Sri Lanka from the Indian subcontinent.
Demolition of Heritage Structures
The Khadia and Kalupur areas have the highest number of heritage havelis (mansions). Some mansions have collapsed and have now been replaced by houses and complexes. No action is being taken.
There are 2692 heritage-listed houses in the walled city area.
FSI Benefit
In 94 cases, owners of heritage houses have been given TDR (Transferable Development Rights) of more than 13,000 square meters. The Gujarat government, in 2014, made a provision in the GDCR 2014 to give TDR to owners of heritage houses for the preservation of these houses. This scheme was started by the Heritage Department in 2015.
Under this scheme, if an owner of a heritage house gets their house repaired, they are given a TDR certificate in exchange for the expenses incurred.
Since 2015, 94 house owners have been given TDR for repairing their houses.
TDR stands for Transferable Development Rights. In the case of the maintenance of heritage houses, it is used to showcase historical buildings. In this process, owners are given the facility to transfer the development rights of their land to another location.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation gives them TDR in exchange for getting their house repaired.
Out of 2692 houses, 44 houses had either collapsed or were illegally constructed and were demolished.
There are 28 heritage monuments that need to be restored scientifically.
These monuments are also reviewed annually after they receive heritage status. They can be placed on the endangered list.
Every year, the ICOMOS organization reviews the work being done in such cities. This change is discussed at the annual UNESCO meeting.
There are 4 grades in heritage structures. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has also put up a board outside the heritage structures, which also mentions the grade of each structure.
The walled city area experiences a lot of traffic. Because of this, tourists do not visit. Rickshaws or taxis are not easily available for getting around.
Control of the City
On the eastern bank of the Sabarmati River was the town of Ashapalli or Ashaval, which later came to be known as Ahmedabad. Centuries-old idols of Surya, Shakti, and Vishnu were found in Ashaval. According to military history, the Chalukya kings of Patan conquered Ashaval in the late 11th century and renamed it Karnavati. The European traveler Thomas Roe also visited Ahmedabad and called it the Venice of the East. In 1525, Ahmedabad was a magnificent city. Muslims, Marathas, and the British each developed the city in their own way. In 1818, due to mismanagement under Maratha rule, the city fell into the hands of the British East India Company.
