Bhubaneswar is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. The region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as Ekamra Khetra (area (kshetra) adorned with mango trees (ekamra)). Bhubaneswar is dubbed the “Temple City”, a nickname earned because of the 700 temples which once stood there. In contemporary times, it has emerged as an education hub and an attractive business destination.

Although the modern city of Bhubaneswar was formally established in 1948, the history of the areas in and around the present-day city can be traced to the 7th century BCE and earlier. It is a confluence of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain heritage and includes several Kalingan temples, many of them from 6th–13th century CE. With Puri and Konark it forms the ‘Swarna Tribhuja’ (“Golden Triangle”), one of eastern India’s most visited destinations.

Bhubaneswar replaced Cuttack as the capital on 19 August 1949, 2 years after India gained its independence from Britain. The modern city was designed by the German architect Otto Königsberger in 1946. Along with Jamshedpur and Chandigarh, it was one of modern India’s first planned cities.

Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are often referred to as the ‘twin cities of Odisha’. The metropolitan area formed by the two cities had a population of 1.7 million in 2011. The Bhubaneswar metro area has a population of around a million people, and is categorised as a Tier-2 city. Bhubaneswar and Rourkela are the only cities in smart city mission from Odisha.

Bhubaneswar is an administrative, information technology, education and tourism city. Bhubaneswar was ranked as the best place to do business in India by the World Bank in 2014. Bhubaneswar has emerged as one of the fast-growing, important trading and commercial hub in the state and eastern India.

Tourism is a major industry, attracting about 1.5 million tourists in 2011. Bhubaneswar was designed to be a largely residential city with outlying industrial areas. The economy had few major players until the 1990s and was dominated by retail and small-scale manufacturing. With the economic liberalisation policy adopted by the Government of India in the 1990s, Bhubaneswar received investment in telecommunications, information technology (IT) and higher education.