Thirteen South Asian Cities from Srinagar to Sylhet

Start in the Kashmir Valley, where Srinagar lies along the Jhelum River and the shores of Dal Lake and Anchar Lake. It is the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, known for houseboats, gardens and crafts such as the Kashmir shawl and papier-mache. The 2011 census counted 1,264,202 people in its urban agglomeration.

Sialkot sits in Pakistani Punjab and borders Jammu to the northeast. Its workshops are among the leading centers in the world for sporting goods, especially hand-stitched footballs, along with surgical instruments and leather goods exported worldwide.

Multan stands on the eastern bank of the Chenab River and is called the City of Saints for its many Sufi shrines and mausoleums. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in South Asia and still trades in agriculture and handicrafts.

This Hyderabad, on the Indus River in Sindh, is a different city from Hyderabad in India. Founded in 1768 on the site of an earlier settlement, it grew as a center of bangle-making, textiles and other crafts and is the second-largest city in Sindh after Karachi.

Delhi is a megacity and union territory that contains New Delhi, the national capital, and spreads along the right bank of the Yamuna. It became a union territory on 1 November 1956 and the National Capital Territory in 1995, and the 2011 census recorded about 16.8 million people in the territory.

Faridabad is the most populous city in Haryana and a major satellite city in the Delhi National Capital Region, with the Yamuna forming its eastern boundary. Its municipal corporation held 1,414,050 residents at the 2011 census, and it was named to the second list of the Smart Cities Mission in May 2016.

Gwalior is the fourth largest city of Madhya Pradesh and home to the oldest musical gharana of the Indian subcontinent. It holds an ancient inscription with one of the earliest known uses of zero in the Hindu numeral system, and the region passed from the Alchon Huns and the Gurjara Pratihara to the Tomar dynasty.

Thane lies on Salsette Island beside Mumbai and was the terminus of the first passenger railway in Asia, a 34-kilometer line from Bombay that opened on April 16, 1853. It was called Thana until 1996 and held 1,886,941 people at the 2011 census.

Kolhapur on the Panchganga River is called Dakshin Kashi for its Mahalaxmi shrine, also known as Ambabai. It is renowned for the handcrafted Kolhapuri chappal, which received geographical indication status in 2019, and was a princely state before 1947.

Dhanbad is known as the Coal Capital of India and is the second-most populous city in Jharkhand. It is home to the Indian School of Mines, and its railway division generates the highest revenue of any in India.

Jamshedpur, also called Tatanagar, is an industrial city at the confluence of the Swarnarekha and Kharkai rivers, ringed by the Dalma Hills. The 2011 census recorded 629,659 people in the city, and it is the largest city in Jharkhand.

Sylhet is the administrative center of Sylhet District and Division in northeastern Bangladesh, on the banks of the Surma River. Tea gardens cover the surrounding hills, and a large diaspora community, particularly in the United Kingdom, keeps strong ties to the region.

End in the hills of Sri Lanka at Kandy, the last capital of the Sinhalese monarchy from 1469 to 1818. It houses the Temple of the Tooth Relic, one of the most important Buddhist sites in the world, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.