Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!
Haridwar, also spelled Hardwar, city, northwestern Uttarakhand state, northern India. Haridwar lies along the Ganges (Ganga) River, at the boundary between the Indo-Gangetic Plain (south) and the Himalayan foothills (north). It is the site of the headworks of the Ganges Canal system.
Haridwar is one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus and is a major pilgrimage centre. It has been known by many names; originally it was called Kapila, for the sage who once lived there. Its present name means “Door to Hari”; Hari is one of the names of Vishnu, a principal deity of Hinduism.
Haridwar’s chief object of pilgrimage is Har-ki-pauri—the bathing ghat, or steps, along the river—which has what believers consider to be a footprint of Vishnu impressed into a stone. Large numbers of pilgrims gather there annually at the beginning of the Hindu solar year in April; a Kumbh Mela (a Hindu religious festival) is held every 12th year in Haridwar. The Daksha Mahadev temple, another important pilgrimage site, lies 2 miles (3 km) downstream at Kankhal. The Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee is the oldest civil engineering college in Asia. Pop. (2001) 175,340; (2011) 228,832.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
Uttarakhand: Settlement patterns…Dun and several other cities—including Haridwar, Haldwani, Roorkee, Kashipur, and Rudrapur—most of Uttarakhand’s urban centres are actually large towns, with populations of less than 50,000.…
Uttarakhand, state of India, located in the northwestern part of the country. It is bordered to the northwest by the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, to the northeast by the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, to the southeast by Nepal, and to the south and southwest by the…
India, country that occupies the greater part of South Asia. It is a constitutional republic consisting of 29 states, each with a substantial degree of control over its own affairs; 6 less fully empowered union territories; and the Delhi national capital territory, which includes New Delhi, India’s capital. With roughly…