ABSTRACT
The Union Territory of Chandigarh lies in northern India, on the Punjab plains, beneath the foothills of the Himalayas. Built as the capital of Indian Punjab, after the Partition at independence in 1947, Chandigarh (‘fortress of the Goddess of Power’, Chandi being a manifestation of Shakti) was constituted as a distinct territory under the authority of the President of India in 1966, to serve as the capital of both the present-day states of Haryana and Punjab, into which the original state was split in the same year. It is, therefore, enclosed by these two states, Punjab to the west and north, and Haryana to the east. Chandigarh’s hinterland extends too into Himachal Pradesh, which also received territory from the old Punjab state in 1966, and the borders of which lie only a few kilometres beyond the city, to the north. Chandigarh covers a total area of 114 sq km (44 sq miles), making it the third smallest of all the union territories of India.
