Red Fort
Site View and Location
Red Fort
India
Longitude: 77.241
Latitude: 28.6562
Historical Significance
The Red Fort is the symbolic centre of Indian nationhood — it is from the fort's Lahori Gate ramparts that India's Prime Minister unfurls the national flag and delivers the Independence Day address every 15th of August, a tradition unbroken since 1947. Recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, the fort also served as the site of the Indian National Army trials of 1945, a landmark moment that accelerated the end of British colonial rule.
Facts
Fact 1
Named for Its Walls, Not Its Interiors
The fort's popular name "Red Fort" refers entirely to its massive perimeter walls of red Agra sandstone; the interior palaces and halls are built almost entirely of white marble inlaid with pietra dura, jasper, and gold — an interior aesthetic deliberately contrasting with the austere exterior.
Fact 2
The Peacock Throne Was Kept Here
Shah Jahan's legendary Peacock Throne — encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls, and valued at roughly twice the annual revenue of Mughal India — stood in the Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audience) until it was looted by Nader Shah of Persia during his 1739 sack of Delhi.
Fact 3
A Canal Through the Bedchambers
The Nahr-i-Behisht (Stream of Paradise) was a real water channel that entered the fort from the Yamuna River and flowed through the private imperial apartments, cooling the marble pavilions and reflecting lamplight — a feat of hydraulic engineering lost when the Yamuna's course later shifted.
Fact 4
The Independence Day Tradition
Every year on 15 August since India's independence in 1947, the Prime Minister of India hoists the national flag from the Lahori Gate of the Red Fort and delivers the nation's Independence Day address — a ritual that transforms a Mughal monument into the living symbolic stage of the Indian republic.
Fact 5
Ransacked Twice in Two Centuries
The fort suffered two catastrophic lootings — by Nader Shah of Persia in 1739, who stripped the Peacock Throne and tonnes of gold and jewels, and again by British forces after the 1857 uprising, when marble screens were torn out, gardens were demolished, and two-thirds of the interior buildings were razed to build barracks.
Fact 6
Shah Jahan's Inscription on the Diwan-i-Khas
The Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audience) bears a Persian couplet in gold: "If there be paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here" — a phrase Shah Jahan had inscribed to describe his creation, and now considered one of the most famous architectural inscriptions in the world.