Holkar capital that kept winning India’s cleanest-city crown
Indore is Madhya Pradesh’s largest city and a financial–industrial hub for a metro region of roughly 5.6 million people across nearly ten thousand square kilometres. Founded as a Deccan–Delhi trade post, it later became a nineteen-gun Holkar princely state before joining independent India—and today regularly tops national cleanliness rankings.
Gupta copper plates of 465 CE already name Indrapura; Skandagupta endowed a sun temple built by merchants Achalavarman and Bhṛikuṇṭhasiṁha. Folk etymology ties the modern name to Indreshwar Mahadev and Indra’s meditation there. Maratha pressure from 1715 shifted commercial gravity: by 1720 the local pargana headquarters moved from Kampel to Indore. Malhar Rao Holkar, left by Peshwa Baji Rao I to collect chauth, became Maratha chief of Malwa in 1730; Ahilyabai Holkar moved headquarters back to Indore in 1766, then shifted the state capital to Maheshwar in 1767 while Indore stayed a commercial–military node.
Ahilyabai’s decades of rule after the deaths of husband Khande Rao (1754), father-in-law Malhar Rao (1766), and son Male Rao (1767) are remembered as a golden age of temple and dharmashala building across India. Defeat in the 1818 Battle of Mahidpur returned the capital to Indore under British residency; John Malcolm promoted the city over Ujjain partly because Ujjain’s merchants had backed anti-British forces. Electric supply began in 1906; Patrick Geddes drafted a master plan in 1918; railways from 1875 accelerated industry under later Holkars.
After 1947 Holkar State acceded to the Union; Indore entered Madhya Pradesh on 1 November 1956. The 2011 census counted nearly two million in the municipal area, with 2025 estimates near 3.5 million for the city proper. It hosts an IIT and an IIM, Smart Cities and Swachh Survekshan programmes, and a metro known for pharmaceuticals, autos, and Asia’s longest test track. Climate sits between tropical savanna and humid subtropical, moderated by elevation—the Shab-e-Malwa cool nights—and monsoon totals of 700–800 millimetres.
Source: Indore
