The Blue City
Jodhpur
Old-city houses washed in blue crowd the foot of Mehrangarh Fort, on the edge of the Thar Desert.
Why Jodhpur is indigo blue
The old quarters below Mehrangarh Fort, above all Brahmapuri, are painted in shades of blue. The colour comes from limewash tinted with indigo or a little copper sulphate. Why it began is not recorded. One common account says Brahmin families marked their homes with it and the neighbours followed. Others say the wash keeps rooms cooler in the desert heat or keeps termites away. These are local traditions, not proven facts. The habit is usually dated to a few centuries back. From the fort ramparts a visitor looks down on a sea of blue cubes, broken by red sandstone and white walls. Newer districts beyond the old wall are mostly unpainted.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Jodhpur
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Jodhpur" on Wikipedia. If you know Jodhpur and we have it wrong, tell us.
More colour cities
All colour cities
๐ฎ๐ณ The Pink CityJaipurThe walled city wears a dusty terracotta pink, first painted on for a royal visit in 1876 and kept ever since.
๐ฎ๐ณ The White CityUdaipurWhite palaces and whitewashed houses stand around lakes in the Aravalli hills of southern Rajasthan.
๐ฎ๐ณ The Golden CityJaisalmerA fort and town built of yellow sandstone that glows like honey at sunset, deep in the Thar Desert.
๐ฎ๐ณ City of saffron and lightVaranasiSaffron robes, marigold garlands and oil lamps colour the river steps of one of the oldest living cities.
๐ฎ๐ณ Town of Holi coloursVrindavanFor Holi the temple town of Krishna's childhood fills with clouds of pink, yellow and green powder.
๐ฎ๐ณ Birthplace of Krishna, home of HoliMathuraKrishna's birthplace celebrates Holi for more than a week, with processions, music and coloured powder.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Jaipur In: Chainwit., CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Udaipur In: Gerd Eichmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Jaisalmer In: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, source
- Varanasi In: Marcin Biaลek, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Vrindavan In: Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0, source
- Mathura In: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, source