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20 Indian Cities Everyone Should Know

India has many, many cities, most of which are rather obscure. Try to name the following twenty towns and cities, which everyone should know.
Quiz by Gassu
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Last updated: April 24, 2021
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First submittedMarch 25, 2021
Times taken18,646
Average score55.0%
Rating4.38
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Hint
Initials
City
Capital of India
ND
New Delhi
Bollywood movies come from here
M
Mumbai
Located about 100 km from the above, this city is known as the "Oxford of the East"
P
Pune
Location of the Taj Mahal
A
Agra
Located on the Deccan Plateau, it is known as the "Silicon Valley" of India
B
Bangalore
Formerly known as Madras
C
Chennai
Site of a massacre by the British. Vividly presented in the 1982 movie "Gandhi".
A
Amritsar
This city on the banks of the Ganges is the holiest in Hinduism
V
Varanasi
Mother Teresa lived in this city near the Bangladesh border
K
Kolkata
This "Blue City" is the namesake of a type of horse-riding trousers
J
Jodhpur
At least 4,000 people died here in 1984 after an industrial gas leak
B
Bhopal
Largest city on the Andaman Islands
PB
Port Blair
Namesake of a famous type of tea
D
Darjeeling
City in southeast India which was owned by France until 1962
P
Pondicherry
This Telangana megacity shares its name with a large Pakistani city
H
Hyderabad
This largest city in Goa is named for a Portuguese explorer
VDG
Vasco da Gama
This port city of Kerala was an important spice trading center
K
Kochi
This town set a record when it received 9.3 meters of rain in a single month
C
Cherrapunji
The largest city in Gujarat, it is home to the world's largest cricket stadium
A
Ahmedabad
Ancient capital of the Magadh, Maurya, and Gupta empires
P
Patna
+6
Level 70
Mar 25, 2021
Nice quiz! Cherrapunji was hard, although Meghalaya is pretty high up on the list of places I would like to visit :)
+3
Level 89
Apr 16, 2021
1 foot of rain a day on average for a month straight? That's unreal. I've seen over 2 feet in in a 24 hour period, but there are usually breaks after a while even in monsoon season.
+4
Level 82
Apr 24, 2021
I was lucky enough to go there when I was living in Delhi back in 2012. It's absolutely stunning.
+1
Level 63
Dec 29, 2021
I love going to India during the monsoon season. It would become a problem whenever we would visit family far into the Himalayas, as indian mountain driving + downpour = hard accessibility.

The situation was very odd in Dehradun. I don't even know what the heck is going on with the topography and the weather there. The amount of rain keeps on changing every block. It is pretty interesting.

+2
Level 60
Mar 25, 2021
Great quiz (。•̀ᴗ-)✧

Btw, Hyderabad is not in Andhra Pradesh, maybe you can call it a Telugu City and can you also accept Mawsynram for Cherrapunji?

Both are like neighbors and Mawsynram actually receives the highest rainfall in the world

+3
Level 70
Mar 26, 2021
Thanks! I don't know which source stated it was in Andhra Pradesh, but it's fixed now!

BTW, Mawsynram works as a type-in for Cherrapunji, but I think the latter is still more associated with rain

+3
Level 87
Apr 16, 2021
Hyderabad used to be the capital of Andhra Pradesh before the state of Telangana was carved out of AP in 2014.
+4
Level 62
Apr 24, 2021
Accepting Mawsynram for Cherrapunji makes no sense at all. Both are completely different cities and the first letter of Cherrapunji is already given as a hint. It's like accepting Thane for Mumbai.
+2
Level 20
Jun 6, 2022
Cherrapunjee is also an accepted spelling {:/ kept trying that
+2
Level 55
Apr 16, 2021
Fantastic Quiz! I almost blanked out on Darjeeling, but managed to remember.
+15
Level 67
Apr 17, 2021
I'd think people should know Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh or even Simla than some obscure ones here
+11
Level 76
Apr 18, 2021
...and Lucknow.
+3
Level 45
Apr 17, 2021
I only know New Delhi and Mumbai, because I don't really mind about India
+5
Level 82
Apr 20, 2021
you might want to change it so Madras doesn't give you Chennai considering that's the clue
+2
Level 89
Apr 20, 2021
I guess I always mistakenly thought the city of Vasco Da Gama in the small state of Goa was also named Goa. I could swear I've seen it labelled on maps as a city. Although small it was an important trading port between Europe and India and wasn't given back to India by Portugal until the early 1960s.
+2
Level 65
Jan 17, 2022
This is a very common misconception, people often refer to Goa as a city, probably since it's the smallest state, but still too large for a city. Maybe it's because their airport is called Goa airport and people usually think of visiting Goa and not any place in particular.
+2
Level 89
Apr 24, 2021
Surprised I got Patna, but I should have remembered Pondicherry.
+2
Level 57
Apr 24, 2021
It would be a wise idea not to accept Madras for the Chennai clue
+2
Level 71
Apr 24, 2021
Bad title for the quiz. Why should anybody know all of these??? I have been to India 6 times and only got 14. But I should have got 15, missing Varanasi was sad
+2
Level 78
Apr 24, 2021
A few typographical notes:

On the question "Formerly known as Madras", if you simply type in "Madras", it auto-fills "Chennai" in for you.

"The port city of Kerala was an important spice trading center" should read "This port city in Kerala was an important spice trading center".

"4000 people died here in 1984 after and industrial gas leak"... First off, the "and" here should clearly be "an". However, to be honest, this question could probably be worded better overall. For one, saying "4000 people died here after an industrial gas leak in 1984" would make more sense, because that specifically identifies the leak as having occurred in 1984, whereas some of the people who died from it died months or years later, not right when the leak happened in December 1984. But also, given how widely the estimated deaths vary (between 2,000 and 20,000 as far as I've read) pinning it at 4,000 may not be the best idea. Maybe giving a range or saying "at least 2,000" might work better.

+2
Level 70
Apr 24, 2021
thank you!
+1
Level 78
Apr 25, 2021
You're welcome!
+1
Level 67
Apr 24, 2021
For the Taj Mahal clue, I thought to myself "It's Agraba....no, don't be stupid. That's the city from Aladdin." And didn't even bother typing it in. Would have given me the answer. D'oh.
+2
Level 60
Apr 25, 2021
Can you please include "Banaras" as a type-in for Varanasi because everyone here in Pakistan remembers and calls it by that name Banaras and it is commonly used in Urdu speakers.
+1
Level 82
May 1, 2021
That's bananas
+2
Level 43
May 23, 2021
Nice one... He is correct btw
+1
Level 64
Aug 4, 2021
So is that were the more common Western rendition 'Benares' comes from? I always wondered how they got the R and the N the other way round...
+6
Level 72
Apr 26, 2021
With so many major cities in India with historic, cultural, or economic importance, this quiz feels Port Blair is a city everyone should know? That feels like a stretch.
+2
Level 63
Dec 29, 2021
I guess it depends on how you define cities which everybody should know. However, I do agree and think that such a city should be replaced with something like Jaipur or Ajmer. (I know jodhpur is already on here, but those are cities which people should definitely know.)
+5
Level 88
Aug 9, 2021
Kozhikode should be an acceptable answer as well as Kochi for: "This port city of Kerala was an important spice trading center"

It is a port city in Kerala starting with K. And at the height of the spice trade Kozhikode (Calicut at the time) was the more important trading centre for the spice trade.

+1
Level 59
Feb 27, 2023
17/20