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Agra Fort 
The fort is also known as Lal Qila , Fort
Rouge and Red Fort of Agra .
It is about 2.5 km northwest of its much more famous sister monument,
the Taj Mahal . The fort can be more accurately described as a walled
palatial city.
By most estimates, the fort was taken over from the Lodis by the
Moghuls in the late 16th century, by Akbar the Great . During his
reign, he shifted the government of his empire from Delhi to Agra.
Because of this, much of Agra flourished and the site of the old
Lodis fort began changing into more of a royal estate. Akbar tended
to build from red sandstone , often inlaid with white marble and
intricate decorations.
It was only during the reign of Akbar's grandson, Shah Jahan ,
that the site finally took on its current state. Legend fortells
that Shah Jahan built the beautiful Taj Mahal for his wife. Unlike
his grandfather, Shah Jahan tended to have buildings made from white
marble, often inlaid with gold or semi-precious gems. He destroyed
some of the earlier buildings inside the fort in order to make his
own.
At the end of his life, Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his
son, Aurangzeb , in the fort, a punishment which might not seem
so harsh, considering the luxury of the fort. It is rumored that
Shah Jahan died in Muasamman Burj, a tower with a marble balcony
with an excellent view of the Taj Mahal.
This was also a site of one of the battles during the Indian rebellion
of 1857 , which caused the end of the British East India Company
's rule in India, and led to a century of direct rule of India by
Britain .
Layout
The entire site is crescent shaped, with 21 meter high walls, surrounded
by a moat, facing out towards the Yamuna River . The perimeter of
the site measures out to about 2.4 kilometers of towering red sandstone
walls. The walls have two gates, the 'Delhi Gate' and the 'Lahore
Gate' (sometimes called
Amar Singh Gate).The Delhi Gate is considered the grandest of the
gates and leads into an inner gate called the Hathi Pol (Elephant
Gate). Due to the fact that the Indian military (the Parachute Brigade
in particular) is still using the northern portion of the Agra Fort,
the Delhi Gate cannot be used by the public. Tourists enter via
the Lahore Gate. Lahore Gate is named so because it faces Lahore
, now in Pakistan .
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