Punjab's densest city, nicknamed India's Manchester
Ludhiana is Punjab’s most populous and densest city, with 1,618,879 residents in the 2011 census across 310 square kilometres. The BBC dubbed it India’s Manchester; it is also called the state’s commercial capital, standing on the Sutlej’s old bank thirteen kilometres from the river’s present course.
Tradition dates the town to 1480 under the Lodi dynasty, when commander Nihad Khan founded a settlement at Mir Hota while Yusuf Khan raised Sultanpur Lodhi across the Sutlej. The name slid from Lodi-ana to Lodiana to Ludhiana. Purana Qila, the Lodhi Fort, is the sole foundation-era monument still standing; Ranjit Singh repaired it, the British maintained it, and Punjab declared it state-protected in December 2013.
Mughal Lahore Subah trade routes fed textiles and grain; later Afghan and Sikh contests left it a Cis-Sutlej frontier post. After the Treaty of Amritsar it became a British cantonment and political agency. Rail, roads, and canals after the Anglo-Sikh wars and 1849 annexation sparked hosiery, metalwork, and farm-machine shops. The municipality dates to 1867. Partition in 1947 swapped a Muslim-majority town (62.9 percent of 111,639 people) for Hindu and Sikh refugees whose workshops built bicycle, sewing-machine, and auto-component fortunes.
Punjab Agricultural University opened in 1962. In 2011 literacy stood at 86.5 percent, with Hindus about sixty-six percent and Sikhs twenty-nine percent; Punjabi was the mother tongue of sixty-seven percent, Hindi of twenty-nine. Annual rain averages roughly 809 millimetres under a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate. Air quality has ranked among India’s worst since 2011—particulate levels over six times WHO guidance, thirteenth most polluted city worldwide in one tally—while industrial stretch along Budha Dariya adds water woes.
Source: Ludhiana
