Place · Krishna river city · India
Vijayawada
Also known as Bezawada, Vijayavada
The commercial and administrative capital of Andhra Pradesh (de facto, pending Amaravati completion), on the Krishna river in central Andhra Pradesh. Vijayawada has a continuously documented history from the Satavahana period through the Eastern Chalukya capital Vengi (6-12 century), the Kakatiya period, the Vijayanagara rule, the Qutb Shahi and British Guntur district era. The city sits at the Prakasam Barrage (opened 1957) across the Krishna, the central node of the Krishna-Godavari delta irrigation network. The Kanaka Durga temple on Indrakiladri hill, the Gunadala Matha Catholic shrine, the Hinkar Thirtha Jain temple, the Mogalrajpuram Jain cave complex and the historic Victoria Jubilee Museum anchor Vijayawada's layered religious geography. The 2014 Andhra Pradesh bifurcation made Vijayawada the state's temporary capital pending the Amaravati greenfield city completion.
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Satavahana · Eastern Chalukya · Kakatiya · Vijayanagara · Indian Union
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 16.506, 80.648
Connections (3)
- Site withinKanaka Durgā, Vijayawāda
The Kanaka Durga temple on Indrakiladri hill sits within Vijayawada city, on the north bank of the Krishna river in the city's central zone. The 10-century temple on the 60-metre hill overlooks the entire Vijayawada urban area and the Prakasam Barrage across the Krishna. The temple's position within Vijayawada makes it the city's chief religious landmark and the central Hindu pilgrimage node of coastal Andhra, with the annual Dussehra festival drawing over 10 million pilgrims across the city.
- Site withinGunadala Matha Shrine, Vijayawada
The Gunadala Matha Catholic shrine sits within Vijayawada on the Gunadala hill in the city's eastern suburbs, 5 kilometres from the central Vijayawada railway station. The 1925 shrine built by Fr Arlati of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions became the central Catholic pilgrimage of Andhra Pradesh. The shrine's annual February Marian feast draws over a million pilgrims from across the Krishna-Godavari delta. Gunadala's position within Vijayawada makes it one of the city's three principal religious landmarks (with Kanaka Durga and the Hinkar Thirtha Jain temple), illustrating Vijayawada's layered multi-religious geography.
- CampaignN. T. Rama Rao
N.T. Rama Rao's Telugu Desam Party was founded on 29 March 1982 at a public rally in Hyderabad. His 1983-1995 three-term chief ministership of Andhra Pradesh re-shaped the state's politics and administration from the former Hyderabad capital (and later Amaravati-Vijayawada), making Vijayawada and the Krishna delta region central to the TDP's traditional vote-bank base.
Sources
Standard reference; Andhra Pradesh state and municipal records.
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