Kolkata, long known in English as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal and one of the country’s largest cities. It sits on the east bank of the Hooghly River in eastern India and served for more than a century as the capital of British India before that role shifted to Delhi.

Where Is Kolkata Located?

Kolkata lies in eastern India on the Hooghly River, a distributary of the Ganges, in the state of West Bengal, of which it is the capital. The city sits close to the delta region where the Ganges and Brahmaputra systems meet the Bay of Bengal, giving it a tropical, humid climate shaped by the Indian monsoon.

A Brief History of Kolkata

East India Company Origins

Kolkata’s modern founding is conventionally dated to 1690, when the English East India Company established a trading post at the village of Sutanuti on the Hooghly’s bank, a settlement that grew into Fort William and the city that followed. The British East India Company made Calcutta the capital of its Bengal Presidency and, over the following century, it became the administrative and commercial center of British power on the subcontinent.

Capital of British India

Calcutta served as the capital of British India from the eighteenth century until 1911, when the colonial government announced it would move the capital to Delhi, a shift completed over the following two decades. During its decades as capital, the city accumulated a concentration of colonial civic architecture unmatched elsewhere in British India, including the Victoria Memorial, which Lord Curzon, Viceroy of British India, commissioned in 1901 as a state memorial to Queen Victoria, the first Empress of British India.

Culture and Economy

Kolkata has long been regarded as one of India’s principal centers of literature, theater, and the visual arts, a reputation tied to the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and to the city’s role as the former colonial capital. Bengali is the dominant language, and the city’s economy today spans manufacturing, trade through its historic port, and an information technology sector that has grown alongside older commercial traditions.

What Is Kolkata Known For?

Kolkata is known for its colonial-era architecture, its intellectual and artistic traditions, and the Howrah Bridge, a cantilever bridge across the Hooghly River connecting the city to its twin city of Howrah, which has become the most widely recognized single image of Kolkata’s skyline since its completion during the Second World War. The Victoria Memorial remains the city’s grandest surviving colonial monument: built of white Makrana marble from Jodhpur in an Indo-Saracenic revival style blending Egyptian, Venetian, Deccan, and Islamic influences, it was designed under the oversight of William Emerson, then president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and now functions as a museum covering both the colonial period and India’s independence movement.

Why Kolkata Matters

Kolkata matters as the city where British colonial administration in India was built and consolidated for nearly two centuries, and as a cultural capital whose literary and artistic output shaped much of modern Bengali and Indian intellectual life. Its architecture and institutions remain a direct physical record of that colonial history, set within a city that has continued to develop its own distinct identity since Indian independence in 1947.

Key Takeaways

• Kolkata (Calcutta) is the capital of West Bengal, on the Hooghly River in eastern India.
• The city’s founding is conventionally dated to 1690, when the English East India Company established a trading post there.
• Calcutta was the capital of British India until 1911, when the British announced the capital’s move to Delhi.
• The Victoria Memorial, commissioned in 1901 by Viceroy Lord Curzon, is the city’s grandest surviving colonial-era monument.

Sources

• Government of India, Ministry of Tourism, “Victoria Memorial,” Incredible India, Undated, https://incredibleindia.gov.in/en/west-bengal/kolkata/victoria-memorial, accessed 2026-10-20.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed October 20, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue