If Rajasthan is the land of the maharajas, Udaipur is its most romantic jewel: a city of white palaces that seem to float on serene lakes, with green hills in the background and a fairy-tale air that has made it a favourite of couples, filmmakers and travellers from all over the world. After the desert and the rugged forts of Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, Udaipur surprises with its softness: the water, the marble, the gardens, the reflection of the Lake Palace in Lake Pichola at sunset. It's no coincidence that it's called 'the Venice of the East' or that it's one of the most beautiful cities in India.
Udaipur was the capital of Mewar, the haughtiest and most independent of the Rajput kingdoms, ruled by the Sisodia dynasty, which prided itself on never having fully submitted to the Mughal Empire, unlike other clans. Its maharanas (as they were called, a title even loftier than 'maharaja') built here, from the 16th century onwards, a set of palaces that are among the most splendid in the country: the enormous City Palace overlooking the lake, the Lake Palace (today one of the most famous hotels in the world) on one island, the Jagmandir on another, temples, gardens and havelis. All of it around Lake Pichola and Lake Fateh Sagar.
This guide helps you make the most of Udaipur at a relaxed pace: which palaces and temples to see, how much admission costs, how to enjoy the essential boat ride, where to catch the best sunset, which day trips are worth it (Ranakpur, Kumbhalgarh) and where to eat and sleep with a lake view. Udaipur rewards the traveller who slows down, who sits on a ghat to watch the palaces reflected in the water and who lets themselves be seduced by the most romantic city on the subcontinent.
Udaipur was founded in 1559 by Maharana Udai Singh II, Rajput ruler of the kingdom of Mewar, who moved his capital here from the old and exposed fortress of Chittorgarh (Chittor), besieged several times by Muslim armies. Looking for a more protected spot among the hills and beside the lakes, Udai Singh founded the city that bears his name and began building the City Palace on the shores of Lake Pichola. Mewar, under the Sisodia dynasty, was the proudest of the Rajput kingdoms: it boasted of descending from the Sun god and of never having fully submitted to the Mughal Empire, unlike other clans that agreed marriages and alliances with Akbar. Mewar's legendary hero is Maharana Pratap, son of Udai Singh, who resisted Akbar's troops and fought the famous Battle of Haldighati in 1576, an eternal symbol of Rajput independence. Over time, Mewar also had to negotiate with the Mughals and later with the British, under whom it became a princely state, but it always kept its prestige as an untamed kingdom. After India's independence in 1947, Mewar-Udaipur joined the Indian Union and the state of Rajasthan. Today its palaces and lakes make it one of the most visited and romantic cities in the country. The full history of Mewar, the Sisodias and Maharana Pratap is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The land of the Rajputs, the warrior caste that raised colossal fortresses in the Thar Desert: blue Jodhpur, romantic Udaipur of the lakes and golden Jaisalmer among the dunes.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Udaipur's story begins long before the city existed, with the kingdom of Mewar and its ruling dynasty, the Sisodias, considered the proudest and most independent of all the Rajput clans. The Sisodias prided themselves on an ancient lineage — they claimed descent from the Sun god (which is why they are called 'Suryavanshi', 'of the solar line') — and on embodying Rajput honour like no one else. Unlike other clans, such as those of Amber-Jaipur, who sealed marriage and submission alliances with the Mughal Empire, the Maharanas of Mewar made resistance to the Mughals a matter of identity and dignity.
For centuries, the capital of Mewar was Chittorgarh (or Chittor), a colossal fortress on a plateau and one of the largest in India. Chittor was the setting for some of the most dramatic and legendary episodes in Rajput history: three great sieges (by the Sultan of Delhi Alauddin Khalji in 1303, by the Sultan of Gujarat in 1535 and by the Mughal emperor Akbar in 1568) in which, facing inevitable defeat, the Rajput women performed jauhar (collective self-immolation by fire to avoid dishonour) while the men rode out to die fighting in the saka. These tragedies, woven from heroism and sacrifice, became the heart of the Rajput imagination.
After Akbar's third and devastating siege of Chittor in 1568, Maharana Udai Singh II, who had managed to escape, realised that the old capital, so exposed, was no longer safe. He needed a new refuge, protected by mountains and water. Udaipur would be born from that need.
Udaipur's founder was Maharana Udai Singh II, who around 1559 — a few years before Chittor finally fell — chose a protected valley among the Aravalli hills, beside Lake Pichola, to establish a new and safer capital. Legend has it that a hermit meditating on the lakeshore advised him to found his city there and blessed the spot. Udai Singh began building the City Palace on a ridge by the water, and around it grew the city that would take his name: Udaipur, 'the city of Udai'.
The choice of site was a masterpiece of strategy and taste. Surrounded by easily defended hills and by lakes that served both as protection and as a water reserve in a semi-arid region, Udaipur was far safer than exposed Chittor. On top of that, its setting of water and mountains gave it from the very start a serene, palatial beauty that would forever set it apart from the rest of Rajasthan. The Maharanas enlarged and beautified the lakes (Pichola, Fateh Sagar), built dams, gardens, temples and island palaces, creating that unique landscape of marble and water.
Udaipur was born, then, as the new heart of a wounded but untamed Mewar that refused to surrender. And very soon the city and its kingdom would have their great hero, a figure who would embody like no other Mewar's spirit of resistance against the most powerful empire of its time.
Mewar's great hero, and one of the most revered figures in all of Rajasthan's history, is Maharana Pratap Singh (1540-1597), son of Udai Singh II. At a time when almost every Rajput kingdom had, in one way or another, accepted the sovereignty of the powerful Mughal emperor Akbar, Pratap flatly refused to submit and pay homage, even at the cost of losing his capital and living for years in hardship and exile in the mountains. His stubborn resistance made him the eternal symbol of Mewar's pride and independence.
The most famous episode is the Battle of Haldighati, fought in 1576 in an Aravalli mountain pass between Pratap's army and the Mughal troops commanded by the Rajput general Man Singh of Amber (who served Akbar). It was a fierce and uneven battle. Pratap, riding his legendary horse Chetak — which, according to tradition, carried him to safety while mortally wounded before dying — fought with great courage but could not defeat the far larger imperial army. Although the military outcome was uncertain at best, and Pratap had to withdraw to the mountains, Haldighati was etched into memory as a heroic David-and-Goliath feat.
In the years that followed, Pratap waged a tenacious guerrilla war from the hills, gradually recovering much of Mewar before dying in 1597, never having surrendered. His figure, that of his horse Chetak and that of his loyal general of Bhil origin (a tribal community of the region) are part of Udaipur's DNA, with statues, monuments and stories remembering them throughout the city and the old kingdom.
Mewar's resistance could not go on forever. In 1615, under the Mughal emperor Jahangir (Akbar's son) and with Maharana Amar Singh I, Pratap's son, Mewar finally signed a peace treaty with the Mughal Empire. It was an agreement negotiated with dignity: Mewar recognised Mughal sovereignty but kept considerable autonomy and, unlike other kingdoms, was exempted from sending princesses to the imperial court, which preserved the dynasty's pride. So, after decades of war, came a period of relative stability in which Udaipur flourished artistically: the palaces were enlarged, the island palaces of Lake Pichola were built (Jagmandir and the future Lake Palace) and the famous Mewar school of miniature painting developed.
With the decline of Mughal power in the 18th century, Mewar, like the rest of Rajasthan, suffered instability and raids by the Marathas, which weakened its finances and its territory. In 1818, seeking protection, the Maharana signed a treaty with the British East India Company, turning Mewar-Udaipur into a princely state under British sovereignty: it kept its Maharana and its internal autonomy in exchange for recognising the power of the Raj in military and foreign affairs.
Under the Raj, the Sisodia dynasty kept its prestige — it was considered the highest-ranking of the Rajput houses — and its lavish lifestyle, while the city retained its palatial, lakeside character. The Maharanas kept building and beautifying palaces and gardens throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, giving Udaipur much of the romantic look that makes it famous today.
After India's independence in 1947, the princely state of Mewar-Udaipur joined the Indian Union, like the other Rajput kingdoms, and in 1949 became part of the new state of Rajasthan. The Maharanas lost political power and, in 1971, their official titles and allowances. Even so, the Mewar family — one of the oldest ruling dynasties in the world, with more than a thousand years and dozens of documented generations — has kept enormous symbolic prestige and much of its heritage, which it has managed to repurpose: parts of the City Palace are a museum and luxury hotels, and the Lake Palace and Jagmandir have become some of the most famous hotels and venues in the world.
21st-century Udaipur is a city of around half a million people, one of India's most popular and romantic tourist destinations, chosen again and again among the most beautiful cities in the country and the world. Its image — white palaces reflected in the lakes, golden sunsets, the Lake Palace floating on the water — appears in documentaries, travel magazines and films (it was a location for the James Bond film 'Octopussy'), and it's a sought-after destination for luxury weddings. Tourism, together with crafts (miniature painting, textiles) and industry, is one of the city's economic engines.
Behind the romance, Udaipur faces very real challenges, above all water: its lakes, which are its soul and its main draw, depend entirely on the monsoon rains and on a delicate system of dams, and in drought years they can drop alarmingly, affecting both the city and tourism. Development pressure, traffic and the conservation of the lakes and heritage are ongoing debates. Even so, few cities seduce like Udaipur: the old capital of the most untamed of the Rajput kingdoms remains, five centuries after Udai Singh, a haven of marble, water and legend in the heart of India.
