Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child.

More than 20,000 artisans and 1,000 elephants worked for over two decades, bringing white marble from Makrana in Rajasthan and inlay stones from as far as Afghanistan, Tibet and Sri Lanka.

Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, it is considered the finest surviving example of Mughal architecture — a perfectly symmetrical composition of gardens, gateway, mosque and tomb.