Bengaluru

The earliest known reference to the name "Bengaluru" was on a ninth-century hero stone or vīra gallu found in Begur. The Old Kannada inscription belonging to the Western Ganga dynasty mentions the place in a battle in 890 CE. However, Kempe Gowda I used the name of a village near Kodigehalli, to name the city as Bengaluru during its foundation in 1537 CE. Bangalore is an anglicised version of the city's Kannada name. The city was also referred to as "Kalyānapura" or "Kalyānapuri" ("Auspicious City") and "Dēvarāyapattana" during the later Vijayanagara Empire period in 16th century CE. An apocryphal story states that the twelfth-century Hoysala king Veera Ballala II, while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor old woman who served him boiled beans. …

Stone Age artefacts discovered at Jālahalli, Sidhapura and Jadigenahalli on Bengaluru's outskirts indicate human settlement around 4000 BCE. Iron Age tools and burial mounds from around 800 BCE, have been found in Koramangala and Chikkajāla. Coins of the Roman emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and Caligula found at Yeswanthpur and HAL indicate the involvement of the region in trans-oceanic trade with the Romans and other civilisations in the first century CE. The region of modern-day Bengaluru was part of several successive South Indian kingdoms. Between the fourth and tenth centuries CE, the region was ruled by the Western Ganga dynasty, the first dynasty to set up effective control over the region. According to Edgar Thurston, twenty-eight kings ruled Gangavadi from the start of the Common Era until its conquest by the Cholas in the early eleventh century CE. …

Bengaluru lies in the southeast of the South Indian state of Karnataka in the heart of the Mysore Plateau (a region of the larger Deccan Plateau) at an average elevation of 900 m (2,953 ft). The city covers an area of 741 km2 (286 sq mi). The Bengaluru metropolitan region covers an area of 7,005 km2 (2,705 sq mi) across three districts–Bengaluru urban, Bengaluru rural and Ramanagara. The Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority, established in 1985, is responsible for the planning of the metropolitan region. The topography is generally flat, with the highest point at Doddabettahalli, located 962 m (3,156 ft) above sea level on a ridge on the western part of the city. Towards the south, the terrain is uneven, with small hills and rocks made of granite and gneiss. The soil in the city consist of red laterite and red, fine loamy to clayey soils. …