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BHUBANESWAR INFORMATION

Bhubaneswar is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Orissa, India. Once the capital of ancient Kalinga, the city has a long history and is today a center for commerce and religious activity. However, the modern city of Bhubaneswar was designed by the German architect Otto Königsberger in 1946. It became the modern capital of the state of Orissa in 1948, a year after India gained its independence from Britain. Before Bhubaneswar, Cuttack was the capital of Orissa until 1947. Both Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are known as the "twin cities" of Orissa. With its vast variety of Hindu temples, Bhubaneswar is often referred to as the temple city of India.

The history of the Bhubaneswar-Khurda region goes back 2000 years. Emperor Kharavela established his capital in Sisupalgarh which is on the outskirts of the city. The Hathigumpha inscriptions at the Udayagiri caves and Khandagiri caves are evidence of the region's antiquity. Modern Bhubaneswar was originally meant to be a well planned city with wide roads and many gardens and parks. The plan was made by Otto H. Königsberger , a German town planner. Though part of the city has stayed faithful to the plan, it has grown rapidly over the last few decades and has made the planning process unwieldy.

Bhubaneswar is situated between 21° 15' North Latitude 85° 15' Longitude and at an altitude of 45 meters above sea level. Geographically, Bhubaneswar is situated in the eastern coastal plains of Orissa and south-west of the river Mahanadi. The city is subdivided into a number of townships and housings.

Bhubaneswar was meant to house the state's machinery and hence was designed to be a largely residential city with outlying industrial areas. The city's economy had few major players till the 1990s and was dominated by Public Sector Units, retail and small scale manufacturing.

Bhubaneswar is home to several educational and research institutions of state and national importance including IOPB - Institute of Physics, IMMT,oec, Utkal University, OUAT - Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology,BPUT,NIT as well as some private universities geared towards engineering, biotechnology and management. Three new institutions of national importance: IIT, NISER and IIIT are also being developed.

Bhubaneswar has air and rail linkages with most major cities in India. Biju Patnaik airport, managed by Airport Authority of India, is the only major airport in the state; an international airport is planned for 2010. Bhubaneswar is connected to New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore by daily flights. In addition to air transport, Bhubaneswar is well-connected to other major Indian cities by a good networks of highways. The National Highway 5, connecting Kolkata and Chennai passes through the city and is one of India's premier highways being part of the 'Golden Quadrilateral' network.The National Highway 60, connecting (one of the major city of orissa)Balasore to Kolkata.

It is also the headquarters of the East Coast Railways and is connected extensively with all corners of India. Multiple daily connections are available for Kolkata, Kharagpur, Vizag, Vijayawada and Chennai. Within Orissa, there are multiple daily connections to cities such as Cuttack,Sambhalpur,balasore,Puri and Berhampur. Daily trains also connect to Delhi and several other cities. There are direct trains to several major Indian cities including Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Durgapur, Ranchi, Bokaro, Gaya, Patna, Muzaffarpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Mathura, Haridwar, Panipat, Patiala, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Kota, Gwalior, Jhansi, Bhopal, Ujjain, Bilaspur, Raipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Warangal, Tirupati, Hubli, Goa, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Trichy, Madurai, Pondicherry, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram andKanyakumari.

As of India's 2001 census, Bhubaneswar has a population of 647,302. Males constitute 56% of the population and females 44%.