The Taj's city — bedai, petha, and the world's greatest monument to love
Agra is home to the Taj Mahal — the ivory-white marble mausoleum on the Yamuna River that is consistently rated the world's most beautiful building and draws over 7 million visitors a year. Beyond the Taj, Agra's walled city contains Agra Fort (UNESCO), the abandoned Mughal capital of Fatehpur Sikri, and a street food culture built on bedai (spiced bread with pea curry for breakfast) and petha (crystallised ash gourd sweet in 50+ flavours).
Agra was established as the Mughal capital by Emperor Akbar in 1556 and reached its zenith under Shah Jahan, who commissioned the Taj Mahal (built 1631–1648) as a tomb for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. The city changed hands repeatedly between the Mughals, Jats, Marathas, and British before the 1857 uprising; the British made it capital of the Northwest Provinces until the capital moved to Allahabad in 1868. The Taj Mahal's white marble has been yellowing from pollution since the 1980s, prompting ongoing disputes about industrial restrictions.