Chapter 9: India and the world on a map
The nicknames of Indian and world cities that exams ask about, with the reason behind each one, and which names more than one city claims.
6 facts to know
A nickname usually comes from one of four things:
If you know the reason, you can usually work out the city even when you've forgotten the name.
Also called The Pink City
The walled old city was painted a terracotta pink in 1876, on the orders of Maharaja Ram Singh II, to welcome a visit by the Prince of Wales. The colour stuck, and buildings in the old city are still kept pink.
Spot it by
Pink-red walls and arches along long, straight market streets (pictured).Remember
Pink for a prince's visit.
Also called The City of Lakes
The city of the Mewar rulers is built around a chain of lakes, the best known being Lake Pichola and Fateh Sagar. The white Lake Palace seems to float in the middle of Pichola (pictured).
Spot it by
White palaces on the water, with the Aravalli hills behind.Remember
Udaipur in Rajasthan is the City of Lakes; Bhopal shares the name.Don't confuse
Udaipur is also sometimes called the Venice of the East, a name that Alappuzha in Keralam (Kerala until 2026) is better known for.
Also called The Blue City; the Sun City
Seen from Mehrangarh Fort, the old town below is a sea of blue houses, which gives it the name Blue City. People give several reasons for the blue, from tradition to keeping houses cool, and no one reason is agreed. Its second name, Sun City, comes from its bright, sunny weather for most of the year.
Spot it by
Blue-washed houses packed below a hilltop fort (pictured).Remember
Jodhpur has two names: blue for its houses, sun for its weather.
Also called The Golden City
The fort and almost the whole town are built of yellow sandstone, which glows gold in the desert sun. Jaisalmer Fort is one of the Hill Forts of Rajasthan on the World Heritage List, and people still live inside it.
Spot it by
Honey-yellow walls and rounded towers rising out of the desert (pictured).Remember
Golden stone, Golden City.
Also called The Garden City; the Silicon Valley of India
Two names from two eras. Its big parks and tree-lined roads, such as Lalbagh and Cubbon Park, earned it the name Garden City. From the 1980s onward it became the centre of India's software industry, so it is now also called the Silicon Valley of India, after the technology region in California.
Spot it by
The glass house in Lalbagh botanical garden (pictured).Remember
Gardens first, then computers.
Also called The City of Joy
The name comes from The City of Joy, a 1985 novel by the French writer Dominique Lapierre about life in one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods, and the warmth he found there. It is now used for the city's love of food, festivals, books and art.
Spot it by
The Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly (pictured).Remember
City of Joy comes from a book.
Also called The City of Pearls
For centuries Hyderabad was a great market for pearls, which were brought in, sorted, drilled and strung here, and the trade grew under the Nizams. The markets around the Charminar still sell pearls today.
Spot it by
The Charminar, with its four minarets (pictured).Remember
Pearls are sold around the Charminar.
Also called The Queen of the Arabian Sea
Kochi has one of the finest natural harbours on India's west coast and was a major port for the spice trade for centuries, visited by Arab, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and British traders. Its place on the Arabian Sea gave it the royal nickname.
Spot it by
The giant Chinese fishing nets along the shore at Fort Kochi (pictured).Remember
The Queen of the Arabian Sea is a port on the Arabian Sea: Kochi.Don't confuse
Alappuzha, also in Keralam, is the Venice of the East, for its canals and backwaters.
Also called The City of Light
In French, la Ville Lumière. The name mainly honours Paris as a centre of new ideas during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. Its early and widespread street lighting is often given as a second reason.
Spot it by
The Eiffel Tower above the Seine (pictured).Remember
Light for ideas, and light for streets.
Also called The Eternal City
Ancient Roman poets wrote of Rome as a city that would last forever, and the name stayed with it. It is also called the City of Seven Hills, after the hills on which the ancient city was built.
Spot it by
The Colosseum (pictured), the great amphitheatre of ancient Rome.Remember
Eternal means lasting forever.
Also called The Big Apple
A 1920s sportswriter used the Big Apple for New York's horse-racing scene, the big prize everyone wanted to win. The city's tourism campaign in the 1970s made it the name for the whole city. It is also called the City That Never Sleeps.
Spot it by
The skyscrapers of Manhattan (pictured).Remember
The Big Apple was the prize everyone wanted.
Also called The City of Canals; the Floating City; La Serenissima
Venice is built on more than a hundred small islands in a lagoon, joined by bridges, with canals for streets. La Serenissima, meaning the Most Serene, was the proud title of the old Republic of Venice.
Spot it by
The Grand Canal, the city's main waterway (pictured).Remember
So many cities are compared to Venice that Venice of the East and Venice of the North each have more than one claimant.| City | Nickname | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Jaipur | Pink City | Old city painted pink in 1876 |
| Udaipur | City of Lakes | Built around Lake Pichola and other lakes |
| Jodhpur | Blue City, Sun City | Blue houses; sunny weather all year |
| Jaisalmer | Golden City | Yellow sandstone fort and houses |
| Bengaluru | Garden City, Silicon Valley of India | Parks such as Lalbagh; centre of the software industry |
| Kolkata | City of Joy | Title of a 1985 novel set in the city |
| Hyderabad | City of Pearls | Historic centre of the pearl trade |
| Kochi | Queen of the Arabian Sea | Fine natural harbour and old spice port |
| Mumbai | City of Seven Islands | Built by joining seven islands into one |
| Ahmedabad | Manchester of India | Its cotton textile mills (see the next table) |
| Coimbatore | Manchester of South India | Hundreds of textile mills |
| Chandigarh | City Beautiful | A planned city with green belts and open spaces |
| Shillong | Scotland of the East | Green rolling hills and a cool, misty climate |
| Nagpur | Orange City | Famous for the oranges grown around it |
| Pune | Queen of the Deccan | Its place on the Deccan plateau |
| Alappuzha | Venice of the East | Canals, backwaters and bridges |
| Bhubaneswar | Temple City | Hundreds of old temples |
| Surat | Diamond City | Most of the world's diamonds are cut and polished here |
| Jamshedpur | Steel City | Grew up around the Tata steel plant |
| Darjeeling | Queen of the Hills | Hill station in the Himalayan foothills |
| City | Nickname | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Paris | City of Light | Centre of Enlightenment ideas; early street lights |
| Rome | Eternal City, City of Seven Hills | Thought to last forever; built on seven hills |
| New York City | Big Apple, City That Never Sleeps | A 1920s racing term that spread to the whole city |
| Venice | City of Canals, Floating City | Canals instead of streets, on islands in a lagoon |
| Chicago | Windy City | Its strong winds off Lake Michigan, though the origin is debated |
| Detroit | Motor City | Home of the big American car makers |
| Philadelphia | City of Brotherly Love | What its Greek name means |
| Prague | City of a Hundred Spires | Its many church towers |
| Edinburgh | Athens of the North | Its learning, and its buildings in Greek style |
| Cairo | City of a Thousand Minarets | Its many mosques |
| Dhaka | City of Mosques | Its many mosques |
| Singapore | Lion City | What its name means, from the Sanskrit Simhapura |
| Amsterdam | Venice of the North | Its ring of canals |
These are where exams trip people up. When the options include only one of the claimants, pick it. When they include two, pick the city in the "Best known for" column.
| Nickname | Best known for | Also claimed by |
|---|---|---|
| Manchester of India | Ahmedabad | Coimbatore is the Manchester of South India; Kanpur is called the Manchester of the East or of North India, and sources differ |
| Venice of the East | Alappuzha, Keralam | Udaipur, and some other Asian cities |
| City of Lakes | Udaipur | Bhopal |
| Queen of the Hills | Darjeeling | Other hill stations use it too |
| Venice of the North | Amsterdam | Several other northern European canal cities |
The Manchester name comes from Manchester in England, the great cotton-mill city of the 19th century. Ahmedabad's first cotton mills opened in the second half of the 1800s, and by the middle of the 1900s the city had dozens of them.
Exams sometimes ask the same kind of question about countries.
| Country | Nickname | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | Land of the Rising Sun | Its name, Nihon, means the sun's origin |
| Finland | Land of a Thousand Lakes | It has far more than a thousand: over 180,000 recorded lakes |
| Bhutan | Land of the Thunder Dragon | Its own name for itself, Druk Yul |
| Norway | Land of the Midnight Sun | In the far north the summer sun never sets; other Arctic places share the name |
Question 1 of 8
Which city is famous for these blue houses?
Question 2 of 8
Which of these is the Golden City?
Question 3 of 8
Which Indian city is most often called the Manchester of India?
Question 4 of 8
This amphitheatre stands in the city known as the Eternal City. Which city is it?
Question 5 of 8
The Big Apple is a nickname for which city?
Question 6 of 8
These fishing nets line the shore of the city called the Queen of the Arabian Sea. Which city is it?
Question 7 of 8
Which country is known as the Land of a Thousand Lakes?
Question 8 of 8
Bengaluru is called the Garden City. What is its other well-known nickname?
Real exam questions on this topic, each with a full solution.
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