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Aurangabad (pronunciationⓘ), officially renamed as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in 2023, is a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Aurangabad district and is the largest city in the Marathwada region. Located on a hilly upland terrain in the Deccan Traps, Aurangabad is the fifth-most populous urban area in Maharashtra, after Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Nashik, with a population of 1,175,116.
The city is a major production center of cotton textile and artistic silk fabrics. Several prominent educational institutions, including Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, are located in the city. The city is also a popular tourism hub, with attractions like the Ajanta and Ellora caves lying on its outskirts, both of which have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1983, the Aurangabad Caves, Devagiri Fort, Grishneshwar Temple, Jama Mosque, Bibi Ka Maqbara, Himayat Bagh, Panchakki and Salim Ali Lake. Historically, there were 52 gates in Aurangabad, some of them still extant, which have earned Aurangabad the nickname the "City of Gates". In 2019, the Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) became the first greenfield industrial smart city of India under the country's flagship Smart Cities Mission.
Paithan, the imperial capital of the Satavahana dynasty (1st century BCE–2nd century CE), as well as Dēvagirī, the capital of the Yadava dynasty (9th century CE–14th century CE), were located within the boundaries of modern Aurangabad. In 1308, the region was annexed by the Delhi Sultanate during the rule of Sultan Alauddin Khalji. In 1327, the capital of the Delhi Sultanate was shifted from Delhi to Daulatabad (in present-day Aurangabad) during the rule of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq, who ordered the mass relocation of Delhi's population to Daulatabad. However, Muhammad bin Tughluq reversed his decision in 1334, and the capital was shifted back to Delhi. In 1499, Daulatabad became a part of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. In 1610, a new city named Khaḍkī was established at the location of modern Aurangabad to serve as the capital of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate by the Ethiopian military leader Malik Ambar, who was brought to India as a slave but rose to become a popular prime minister of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. Malik Ambar was succeeded by his son Fateh Khan, who changed the name of the city to Fatehnagar. In 1636, Aurangzeb, who was then the Mughal viceroy of the Deccan region, annexed the city into the Mughal Empire. In 1653, Aurangzeb renamed the city as Aurangabad and made it the capital of the Deccan region. In 1724, the Mughal governor of the Deccan, Nizam Asaf Jah I, seceded from the Mughal Empire and founded his own dynasty. The dynasty established the State of Hyderabad, with their capital initially at Aurangabad, until they transferred it to the city of Hyderabad in 1763. Hyderabad State became a princely state during the British Raj and remained so for 150 years (1798–1948). Until 1956, Aurangabad remained part of Hyderabad State. In 1960, Aurangabad and the larger Marathi-speaking Marathwada region became part of the state of Maharashtra.
Khaḍkī was the original name of the village which was made a capital city by Malik Ambar, the Prime Minister of Murtaza Nizam Shah II, Sultan of Ahmednagar. Within a decade, Khaḍkī grew into a populous and imposing city. Malik Ambar died in 1626, and was succeeded by his son Fateh Khan, who changed the name of Khaḍkī to Fatehnagar. With the capture of Devagiri Fort by the imperial troops in 1633, the Nizam Shahi dominions, including Fatehnagar, became a possession of the Mughals.
In 1653, when Mughal prince Aurangzeb was appointed the Viceroy of the Deccan for the second time, he made Fatehnagar his capital and renamed it Aurangabad. Aurangabad is sometimes referred to as Khujista Bunyad by the chroniclers of Aurangzeb's reign.
In 1667 Muazzam, son of Aurangzeb, became governor of the province. Before him, Mirza Raja Jai Singh was in charge of this province for some time.
In 1681, after Aurangzeb's coronation as emperor, he shifted his court from the capital city of Delhi to Aurangabad in order to conduct his military campaigns in the Deccan. The presence of Mughal elites in the city led to urban development, and numerous public and private buildings were constructed. Aurangabad had a city wall built encircling it around 1683 in response to Maratha raids, of which several gates still stand, such as the Delhi Gate. Though Aurangzeb chose not to reside in the city after 1684, the city retained its importance as the primary military outpost of the Mughal Deccan, attracting wealth and turning Aurangabad into a centre of trade; the manufacture of embroidered silks emerged during this period and is still practised in Aurangabad today. Mughal Aurangabad was also a cultural hub, serving as an important centre of Persian and Urdu literature. During the Mughal era, Aurangabad had an estimated population of 200,000 people, living in 54 suburbs.
In 1724, Asaf Jah, a Mughal general and Nizam al-Mulk of the Deccan region, decided to secede from the crumbling Mughal Empire, with the intention of founding his own dynasty in the Deccan. Aurangabad continued to be politically and culturally significant for the next 40 years as the capital of Asaf Jah's new dominion, until his son and successor, Nizam Ali Khan Asaf Jah II, transferred the capital to Hyderabad in 1763. The loss of Aurangabad's privileged position led to a period of economic decline; by the beginning of the 19th century, the city had become notably underpopulated, leading to the crippling of its administration, and its buildings were in decay. However, Aurangabad would continue to be important as the "second city" of the Nizam's dominions for the remainder of the polity's lifetime.
In 1816, the British established a cantonment outside Aurangabad (as they did in other parts of the Nizam's dominions), but were discouraged from entering the city proper by the Nizam's officials. As a princely state under British suzerainty, the Nizam's Hyderabad State was quasi-autonomous, meaning that Aurangabad's culture was somewhat free of colonial influence.
Aurangabad began to industrialise in the late 19th century, with the city's first cotton mill being opened in 1889. The population of the city was 30,000 in 1881, growing to 36,000 over the next two decades. Aurangabad was particularly affected by Deccan famines in 1899-1900, 1918, and 1920, causing surges in crime.
In 1903, the British and the Nizam signed a treaty to train the Nizam's army, and it was decided to establish a proper cantonment. Today the cantonment is spread across 2,584 acres (10.46 km2), with a civilian population of 19,274 per the 2001 census.
Following Indian independence, Hyderabad State was annexed into the Indian Union in 1948, and consequently Aurangabad became a part of the Indian Union's Hyderabad State. In 1956, it passed into the newly formed bilingual Bombay State, and in 1960 it became a part of Maharashtra state.
Bal Thackeray in 1988 proposed the city be renamed as Sambhajinagar. The local governing body, Aurangabad Corporation passed a resolution on the name change in 1995. On 29 June 2022, the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra cabinet approved the renaming of Aurangabad to Sambhaji Nagar, after Sambhaji Bhosale, second Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire. The decision was challenged in Bombay High Court, who put a restraining order on the use of the new name. On 23 February 2023 the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs approved the proposal to rename Aurangabad. On 7 May 2024, Bombay High Court ruled that the renaming of Aurangabad was legal. Aurangabad railway station was not officially renamed "Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar railway station" until 15 October 2025.
The co-ordinates for Aurangabad are N 19° 53' 47" – E 75° 23' 54". The city is surrounded by the Ajanta mountain range in all directions.
Aurangabad features a semiarid climate under the Köppen climate classification. Annual mean temperatures range from 17 to 33 °C, with the most comfortable time to visit being in winter – October to February. The highest maximum temperature ever recorded was 46 °C (115 °F) on 25 May 1905. The lowest recorded temperature was 2 °C (36 °F) on 2 February 1911. In the cold season, the district is sometimes affected by cold waves in association with the eastward passage of western disturbances across north India, when the minimum temperature may drop down to about 2 to 4 °C (36 to 39 °F).
Most of the rainfall occurs in the monsoon season from June to September. Thunderstorms occur between November and April. Average annual rainfall is 710 mm. The city is often cloudy during the monsoon season and the cloud cover may persist for days. The daily maximum temperature in the city often drops to around 22 °C due to the cloud cover and heavy rains.
Aurangabad has been ranked the 36th best "National Clean Air City" (under Category 1 >10L Population cities) in India.
The entire area is covered by the Deccan Traps lava flows of the Upper Cretaceous to Lower Eocene ages. The lava flows are overlain by thin alluvial deposits along the Kham and Sukhana rivers. The basaltic lava flows are the only major geological formation in Aurangabad. The lava flows are horizontal, and each flow has two distinct units. The upper layers consist of vesiculara and amygdaloidal zeolitic basalt, while the bottom layer consists of massive basalt. The lava flows are individually different in their ability to receive as well as hold water in storage and to transmit it. The difference in the productivity of groundwater in various flows arises as a result of their inherent physical properties, such as porosity and permeability. The groundwater occurs under water table conditions and is mainly controlled by the extent of its secondary porosity, i.e. thickness of weathered rocks and spacing of joints and fractures. The highly weathered vesicular trap and underlying weathered jointed and fractured massive trap constitutes the main water-yielding zones. The soil is mostly formed from igneous rocks and is black, medium black, shallow and calcareous types having different depths and profiles.
According to the 2011 Indian Census, Aurangabad had a population of 1,175,116, of which 609,206 were males and 565,910 were females. Of these, 158,779 were in the age range of 0 to 6 years. The total number of literate people in Aurangabad was 889,224, which constituted 75.67% of the population with male literacy of 79.34% and female literacy of 71.72%. The effective literacy rate of 7+ population of Aurangabad was 87.5%, of which male literacy rate was 92.2% and female literacy rate was 82.5%. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes population was 229,223 and 15,240, respectively. There were 236659 households in Aurangabad in 2011.
The majority of the population in Aurangabad are Hindu (51%), followed by Muslim (30%), Buddhist (15.2%) and Jain (1.6%). There are also a substantial number of adherents of Sikhism and Christianity in the city. Buddhists are of Navayana tradition, who are mostly scheduled castes.
Marathi is the official language of the city. It is also the most commonly spoken language in the city, followed by Urdu and Hindi.
The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is the local civic body. It is divided into six zones. The Municipal Council was established in 1936, and administers an area of about 54.5 km2. It was elevated to the status of municipal corporation on 8 December 1982, simultaneously including eighteen peripheral villages, raising the total area under its jurisdiction to 138.5 km2.
The city is divided in 115 electoral wards called Prabhag, and each ward is represented by a corporator elected by the people from each ward. There are two committees, the General Body and Standing Committee, headed by the mayor and the chairman, respectively. The AMC is responsible for providing basic amenities, such as drinking water, drainage facilities, roads, street lights, healthcare facilities, primary schools, etc. The AMC collects its revenue from urban taxes collected from its citizens. The administration is headed by the Municipal Commissioner; an IAS Officer, assisted by the other officers of different departments. The Aurangabad Metropolitan Region Development Authority (AMRDA) is being formed for the development of the region.
According to financial data published on the CityFinance Portal of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation reported total revenue receipts of ₹758 crore (US$91 million) and total expenditure of ₹769 crore (US$93 million) in 2022–23. Tax revenue accounted for about 14.4% of the total revenue, while the corporation received ₹371 crore in grants during the financial year.
Aurangabad division is one of the six administrative divisions of Maharashtra state in India. Aurangabad division almost completely coincides with the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. Aurangabad has one seat in the Lok Sabha. In the 2024 general election, Shiv Sena candidate Sandipanrao Bhumre was elected as a member of parliament from Aurangabad.
Aurangabad also has three state assembly seats, Aurangabad East, Aurangabad Central and Aurangabad West, which are represented by Atul Moreshwar Save (BJP), Pradeep Jaiswal (Shiv-Sena) and Sanjay Shirsat (Shiv-Sena), respectively, since the 2019 Maharashtra Legislation Assembly election.
Aurangabad is considered to be a classic example of efforts of state government towards balanced industrialisation of state. The city was a major silk and cotton textile production center. A fine blend of silk with locally grown cotton was developed as Himroo textile. Paithani silk saris are also made in Aurangabad. With the opening of the Hyderabad-Godavari Valley Railways in the year 1900 several ginning factories were started. After 1960, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) began acquiring land and setting up industrial estates. The Maharashtra Center For Entrepreneurship Development's main office is in Aurangabad. Major industries in Auragabad are manufacturing, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and automobiles etc. In the 1990s, land near Shendra village on the Aurangabad-Jalna route was purchased. The MIDC created the Waluj and Chikalthana Industrial Areas as part of its efforts, which were quickly purchased.
Aurangabad is surrounded by the industrial areas (MIDCs) of Chikhalthana, Shendra and Waluj MIDC. A new industrial belt namely Shendra - Bidkin Industrial Park is being developed under DMIC. Major Siemens and automotive companies such as BMW, Audi India, Skoda Auto, Bajaj Auto and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company have there units in the city. One of the largest Russian Steel Company NLMK has set up plant in DMIC Shendra phase.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Aurangabad”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.