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Cities of India About a quarter of India's population is urban. Numerically that is about the whole population of USA. At least 23 Indian cities have over million residents. Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai and Chennai are the four main cities of India. The first three cities have over 10 million residents each. Delhi is actually comprised of two cities, Old Delhi and New Delhi, which is the capital of India. Delhi has a large number of historical monuments and is probably the city with the largest number of historical monuments in the world. Calcutta was considered in the past as the center of Indian culture and intellectuals. Some of the famous modern India philosophers, like Swami Vivekananda, were centered in Calcutta. Today Calcutta is seen as the most polluted and poverty stricken city of India. Calcutta was also the most populated city of India. In the early 1990s Mumbai became the most populated city of India and is in many fields the center of India. The first impression a foreigner gets of Mumbai is poverty. But Mumbai for Indians is like New York and Los Angles together. Mumbai was always the commercial, financial and entertainment center of India. Of the 23 stock exchanges in India, the stock exchanges of Mumbai are the most important. India produces the largest number of movies in the world. Until the mid-90s it had over 800 movies a year. In this field Bollywood(like Hollywood) in Mumbai is the entertainment center, even though some other cities of India, like Chennai in south India produces more movies than Mumbai. In the last few years Hyderabad, capital of Andra Pradesh, is competing with Chennai as the movie center of India. Hyderabad is also competing with Bangalore as the 'silicon valley' of India. Bangalore is considered today as the technology center of India. Most of the high technology companies that operate in India are centered in Bangalore. Bangalore is called 'garden city'. It is very clean compared to other Indian cities. It is also seen as the most westernized city in India because of the pubs and western style shopping centers. Most of the larger cities listed below are industrial centers of India. Cities like Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Banglore, Ahmedabad and Bhopal are filled with mills and factories. Agra and Jaipur also have industries, but their main attraction is tourism. Madurai and Varanasi are important pilgrimage centers for Hindus. Cities with a population of over a million
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