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Kolkata

Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta (its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, 80 km west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary financial and commercial centre of eastern and northeastern India. Kolkata is seventh most populous city with an estimated city proper population of 4.5 million (0.45 crore) while its metropolitan region Kolkata Metropolitan Area is third most populous metropolitan region of India with metro population of over 15 million (1.5 crore). Kolkata is the regarded by many sources as the cultural capital of India and a historically and culturally significant city in the historic region of Bengal.— — — — — It is the second largest Bengali-speaking city in the world. It has the highest number of Nobel laureates among all cities in India.

The three villages that predated Calcutta were ruled by the Nawab of Bengal under Mughal suzerainty. After the Nawab granted the East India Company a trading licence in 1690, the area was developed by the Company into Fort William. Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah occupied the fort in 1756 but was defeated at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, after his general Mir Jafar mutinied in support of the company, and was later made the Nawab for a brief time. Under company and later crown rule, Calcutta served as the de facto capital of India until 1911. Calcutta was the second largest city in the British Empire, after London, and was the centre of bureaucracy, politics, law, education, science and the arts in India. The city was associated with many of the figures and movements of the Bengali Renaissance. It was the hotbed of the Indian nationalist movement.

The partition of Bengal in 1947 affected the fortunes of the city. Following independence in 1947, Kolkata, which was once the premier centre of Indian commerce, culture, and politics, suffered many decades of political violence and economic stagnation before it rebounded. In the late 20th century, the city hosted the government-in-exile of Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. It was also flooded with Hindu refugees from East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) in the decades following the 1947 partition of India, transforming its landscape and shaping its politics. The city was overtaken by Mumbai (formerly Bombay) as India's largest city.

A demographically diverse city, the culture of Kolkata features idiosyncrasies that include distinctively close-knit neighbourhoods (paras) and freestyle conversations (adda). Kolkata's architecture includes many imperial landmarks, including the Victoria Memorial, Howrah Bridge and the Grand Hotel. The city's heritage includes India's only Chinatown and remnants of Jewish, Armenian, Greek and Anglo-Indian communities. The city is closely linked with Bhadralok culture and the Zamindars of Bengal, including Bengali Hindu, Bengali Muslim and tribal aristocrats. The city is often regarded as India's cultural capital.

Kolkata is home to venerable institutions of national importance, including the Academy of Fine Arts, the Asiatic Society, the Indian Museum and the National Library of India. The University of Calcutta, first modern university in south Asia and its affiliated colleges produced many leading figures of South Asia. It is the centre of the Indian Bengali film industry, which is known as Tollywood. Among scientific institutions, Kolkata hosts the Geological Survey of India, the Botanical Survey of India, the Calcutta Mathematical Society, the Indian Science Congress Association, the Zoological Survey of India, the Horticultural Society, the Institution of Engineers, the Anthropological Survey of India and the Indian Public Health Association. The Port of Kolkata is India's oldest operating port. Four Nobel laureates and two Nobel Memorial Prize winners are associated with the city.— — — — — Though home to major cricketing venues and franchises, Kolkata stands out in India for being the country's centre of association football. Kolkata is known for its grand celebrations of the Hindu festival of Durga Puja, which is recognized by UNESCO for its importance to world heritage. Kolkata is also known as the  'City of Joy'.

Etymology
The word Kolkata (কলকাতা ) derives from Kôlikata (কলিকাতা ), the Bengali language name of one of three villages that predated the arrival of the British; the other two villages were Sutanuti and Govindapur.

There are several explanations for the etymology of this name: Although the city's name has always been pronounced Kolkata or Kôlikata in Bengali, the anglicised form Calcutta was the official name until 2001, when it was changed to Kolkata in order to match Bengali pronunciation.
 * Kolikata is thought to be a variation of Kalikkhetrô (কালীক্ষেত্র ), meaning 'Field of [the goddess] Kali'. Similarly, it can be a variation of Kalikshetra (Sanskrit: कालीक्षेत्र, lit. 'area of Goddess Kali').
 * Another theory is that the name derives from Kalighat.
 * Alternatively, the name may have been derived from the Bengali term kilkila (কিলকিলা), or 'flat area'.
 * The name may have its origin in the words khal (খাল ) meaning 'canal', followed by kaṭa (কাটা ), which may mean 'dug'.
 * According to another theory, the area specialised in the production of quicklime or koli chun (কলি চুন ) and coir or kata (কাতা ); hence, it was called Kolikata).

History
The discovery and archaeological study of Chandraketugarh, 35 km north of Kolkata, provide evidence that the region in which the city stands has been inhabited for over two millennia. Kolkata or Kalikata in its earliest mentions, is described to be a village surrounded with jungle on the bank of river Ganga as a renowned port, commercial hub and a hindu pilgrimage site for Kalighat Temple. The first mention of the Kalikata village was found in Bipradas Pipilai's Manasa Vijay (1495), where he describes how Chand Sadagar used to stop in Kalighat to worship Goddess Kali during his path to trade voyage. Later Kalikata was also found to be mentioned in Mukundaram Chakrabarti's Chandimangal (1594), Todar Mal's taxation-list in 1596 and Krishnaram Das's Kalikamangal (1676-77). Kalighat was then considered a safe place for businessmen. They used to carry on trade through the Bhagirathi and took shelter there at night. Kolkata's recorded history began in 1690 with the arrival of the English East India Company, which was consolidating its trade business in Bengal. Job Charnock is often regarded as the founder of the city; however, in response to a public petition, the Calcutta High Court ruled in 2003 that the city does not have a founder. The area occupied by the present-day city encompassed three villages: Kalikata, Gobindapur and Sutanuti. Kalikata was a fishing village, where a handful of merchants began their operations by building a factory; Sutanuti was a riverside weavers' village; and Gobindapur was a trading post for Indian merchant princes. These villages were part of an estate belonging to the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family of zamindars. The estate was sold to the East India Company in 1698.

In 1712, the British completed the construction of Fort William, located on the east bank of the Hooghly River to protect their trading factory. Facing frequent skirmishes with French forces, the British began to upgrade their fortifications in 1756. The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, condemned the militarisation and tax evasion by the company. His warning went unheeded, and the Nawab attacked; his capture of Fort William led to the killings of several East India company officials in the Black Hole of Calcutta. A force of Company soldiers (sepoys) and British troops led by Robert Clive recaptured the city the following year. Per the 1765 Treaty of Allahabad following the battle of Buxar, East India company was appointed imperial tax collector of the Mughal emperor in the province of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, while Mughal-appointed Nawabs continued to rule the province. Declared a presidency city, Calcutta became the headquarters of the East India Company by 1773.

In 1793, ruling power of the Nawabs were abolished, and East India company took complete control of the city and the province. In the early 19th century, the marshes surrounding the city were drained; the government area was laid out along the banks of the Hooghly River. Richard Wellesley, Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William between 1797 and 1805, was largely responsible for the development of the city and its public architecture. Throughout the late 18th and 19th century, the city was a centre of the East India Company's opium trade. A census in 1837 records the population of the city proper as 229,700, of which the British residents made up only 3,138. The same source says another 177,000 resided in the suburbs and neighbouring villages, making the entire population of greater Calcutta 406,700.

In 1864, a typhoon struck the city and killed about 60,000 in Kolkata.

By the 1850s, Calcutta had two areas: White Town, which was primarily British and centred on Chowringhee and Dalhousie Square; and Black Town, mainly Indian and centred on North Calcutta. The city underwent rapid industrial growth starting in the early 1850s, especially in the textile and jute industries; this encouraged British companies to massively invest in infrastructure projects, which included telegraph connections and Howrah railway station. The coalescence of British and Indian culture resulted in the emergence of a new babu class of urbane Indians, whose members were often bureaucrats, professionals, newspaper readers, and Anglophiles; they usually belonged to upper-caste Hindu communities. In the 19th century, the Bengal Renaissance brought about an increased sociocultural sophistication among city denizens. In 1883, Calcutta was host to the first national conference of the Indian National Association, which was the first avowed nationalist organisation in India.

The partition of Bengal in 1905 along religious lines led to mass protests, making Calcutta a less hospitable place for the British. The capital was moved to New Delhi in 1911. Calcutta continued to be a centre for revolutionary organisations associated with the Indian independence movement. The city and its port were bombed several times by the Japanese between 1942 and 1944, during World War II. Millions starved to death during the Bengal famine of 1943 (at the same time of the war) due to a combination of military, administrative, and natural factors. Demands for the creation of a Muslim state led in 1946 to an episode of communal violence that killed over 4,000. The partition of India led to further clashes and a demographic shift—many Muslims left for East Bengal (later East Pakistan, present day Bangladesh), while hundreds of thousands of Hindus fled into the city.

During the 1960s and 1970s, severe power shortages, strikes and a violent Marxist–Maoist movement by groups known as the Naxalites damaged much of the city's infrastructure, resulting in economic stagnation. During East Pakistan's secessionist war of independence in 1971, the city was home to the government-in-exile of Bangladesh. During the war, refugees poured into West Bengal and strained Kolkata's infrastructure. The Eastern Command of the Indian military, which is based in Fort William, played a pivotal role in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and securing the surrender of Pakistan. During the mid-1980s, Mumbai (then called Bombay) overtook Kolkata as India's most populous city. In 1985, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi dubbed Kolkata a "dying city" in light of its socio-political woes. In the period 1977–2011, West Bengal was governed from Kolkata by the Left Front, which was dominated by the Communist Party of India (CPM). It was the world's longest-serving democratically elected communist government, during which Kolkata was a key base for Indian communism. The city's economic recovery gathered momentum after the 1990s, when India began to institute pro-market reforms. Since 2000, the information technology (IT) services sector has revitalised Kolkata's stagnant economy. The city is also experiencing marked growth in its manufacturing base. In the 2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, Left Front was defeated by the Trinamool Congress.

Geography
Spread roughly north–south along the east bank of the Hooghly River, Kolkata sits within the lower Ganges Delta of eastern India approximately 75 km (47 mi) west of the international border with Bangladesh; the city's elevation is 1.5 - 9 m. Much of the city was originally a wetland that was reclaimed over the decades to accommodate a burgeoning population. The remaining undeveloped areas, known as the East Kolkata Wetlands, were designated a "wetland of international importance" by the Ramsar Convention (1975). As with most of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the soil and water are predominantly alluvial in origin. Kolkata is located over the "Bengal basin", a pericratonic tertiary basin. Bengal basin comprises three structural units: shelf or platform in the west; central hinge or shelf/slope break; and deep basinal part in the east and southeast. Kolkata is located atop the western part of the hinge zone which is about 25 km wide at a depth of about 45000 m below the surface. The shelf and hinge zones have many faults, among them some are active. Total thickness of sediment below Kolkata is nearly 7500 m above the crystalline basement; of these the top 350 - 450 m is Quaternary, followed by 4500 - 5500 m of Tertiary sediments, 500 - 700 m trap wash of Cretaceous trap and 600 - 800 m Permian-Carboniferous Gondwana rocks. The quaternary sediments consist of clay, silt and several grades of sand and gravel. These sediments are sandwiched between two clay beds: the lower one at a depth of 250 - 650 m; the upper one 10 - 40 m in thickness. According to the Bureau of Indian Standards, on a scale ranging from I to V in order of increasing susceptibility to earthquakes, the city lies inside seismic zone III.

Climate
Kolkata is subject to a tropical wet-and-dry climate that is designated Aw under the Köppen climate classification. According to a United Nations Development Programme report, its wind and cyclone zone is "very high damage risk".

Temperature
The annual mean temperature is 26.8 C; monthly mean temperatures are 19 - 30 C. Summers (March–June) are hot and humid, with temperatures in the low 30s Celsius; during dry spells, maximum temperatures sometime exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in May and June. Winter lasts for roughly $2 1/2$ months, with seasonal lows dipping to 9 – in December and January. May is the hottest month, with daily temperatures ranging from 27 - 37 C; January, the coldest month, has temperatures varying from 12 - 23 C. The highest recorded temperature is 43.9 C, and the lowest is 5 C. The winter is mild and very comfortable weather pertains over the city throughout this season. Often, in April–June, the city is struck by heavy rains or dusty squalls that are followed by thunderstorms or hailstorms, bringing cooling relief from the prevailing humidity. These thunderstorms are convective in nature, and are known locally as kal bôishakhi (কালবৈশাখী), or "Nor'westers" in English.

Rainfall
Rains brought by the Bay of Bengal branch of the south-west summer monsoon lash Kolkata between June and September, supplying it with most of its annual rainfall of about 1850 mm. The highest monthly rainfall total occurs in July and August. In these months often incessant rain for days brings life to a stall for the city dwellers. The city receives 2,107 hours of sunshine per year, with maximum sunlight exposure occurring in April. Kolkata has been hit by several cyclones; these include systems occurring in 1737 and 1864 that killed thousands. More recently, Cyclone Aila in 2009 and Cyclone Amphan in 2020 caused widespread damage to Kolkata by bringing catastrophic winds and torrential rainfall.

Environmental issues
Pollution is a major concern in Kolkata. , sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide annual concentration were within the national ambient air quality standards of India, but respirable suspended particulate matter levels were high, and on an increasing trend for five consecutive years, causing smog and haze. Severe air pollution in the city has caused a rise in pollution-related respiratory ailments, such as lung cancer.

Cityscape and urban structure
Kolkata, which is under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), has an area of 206.08 km2. The east–west dimension of the city is comparatively narrow, stretching from the Hooghly River in the west to roughly the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in the east—a span of 9 - 10 km. The north–south distance is greater, and its axis is used to section the city into North, Central, South and East Kolkata. North Kolkata is the oldest part of the city. Characterised by 19th-century architecture and narrow alleyways, it includes areas such as Jorasanko, Rajabazar, Maniktala, Ultadanga, Shyambazar, Shobhabazar, Bagbazar, Cossipore, Sinthee etc. The north suburban areas like Dum Dum, Baranagar, Belgharia, Sodepur, Khardaha, New Barrackpore, Madhyamgram, Barrackpore, Barasat etc. are also within the city of Kolkata (as a metropolitan structure). Central Kolkata hosts the central business district. It contains B. B. D. Bagh, formerly known as Dalhousie Square, and the Esplanade on its east; Rajiv Gandhi Sarani is on its west. The West Bengal Secretariat, General Post Office, Reserve Bank of India, Calcutta High Court, Lalbazar Police Headquarters and several other government and private offices are located there. Another business hub is the area south of Park Street, which comprises thoroughfares such as Jawahar Lal Nehru Road, Abanindra Nath Tagore Sarani, Dr. Martin Luther King Sarani, Dr. Upendra Nath Brahmachari Sarani, Shakespeare Sarani and Acharay Jagadish Chandra Basu Road.

South Kolkata developed after India gained independence in 1947; it includes upscale neighbourhoods such as Bhowanipore, Alipore, Ballygunge, Kasba, Dhakuria, Santoshpur, Garia, Golf Green, Tollygunge, New Alipore, Behala, Barisha etc. The south suburban areas like Maheshtala, Budge Budge, Rajpur Sonarpur, Baruipur etc. are also within the city of Kolkata (as a metropolitan structure). The Maidan is a large open field in the heart of the city that has been called the "lungs of Kolkata" and accommodates sporting events and public meetings. The Victoria Memorial and Kolkata Race Course are located at the southern end of the Maidan. Among the other parks are Central Park in Bidhannagar and Millennium Park on Rajiv Gandhi Sarani, along the Hooghly River.

Metropolitan area and satellite cities
The Kolkata metropolitan area is spread over 1886.67 km2 and comprises 4 municipal corporations (including Kolkata Municipal Corporation), 37 local municipalities and 24 panchayat samitis, as of 2011. The urban agglomeration encompassed 72 cities and 527 towns and villages, as of 2006. Suburban areas in the Kolkata metropolitan area incorporate parts of the following districts: North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia.

Two planned townships in the greater Kolkata region are Bidhannagar, also known as Salt Lake City and located north-east of the city; and Rajarhat, also called New Town and located east of Bidhannagar. In the 2000s, Sector 5 in Bidhannagar developed into a business hub for information technology and telecommunication companies. Both Bidhannagar and New Town are situated outside the Kolkata Municipal Corporation limits, in their own municipal corporations or authorities.

Economy
Kolkata is the commercial and financial hub of East and North-East India and home to the Calcutta Stock Exchange. It is a major commercial and military port, and is one of five cities in eastern India (alongside Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Imphal, and Kushinagar) to have an international airport. Once India's leading city, Kolkata experienced a steady economic decline in the decades following India's independence due to steep population increases and a rise in militant trade-unionism, which included frequent strikes that were backed by left-wing parties. From the 1960s to the late 1990s, several factories were closed and businesses relocated. The lack of capital and resources added to the depressed state of the city's economy and gave rise to an unwelcome sobriquet: the "dying city". The city's fortunes improved after the Indian economy was liberalised in the 1990s and changes in economic policy were enacted by the West Bengal state government. Recent estimates of the economy of Kolkata's metropolitan area have ranged from $150 to $250 billion (PPP GDP), and have ranked it third-most productive metro area of India.

Flexible production has been the norm in Kolkata, which has an informal sector that employs more than 40% of the labour force. One unorganised group, roadside hawkers, generated business worth ₹ 87.72 billion (US$ 2 billion) in 2005. , around 0.81% of the city's workforce was employed in the primary sector (agriculture, forestry, mining, etc.); 15.49% worked in the secondary sector (industrial and manufacturing); and 83.69% worked in the tertiary sector (service industries). , the majority of households in slums were engaged in occupations belonging to the informal sector; 36.5% were involved in servicing the urban middle class (as maids, drivers, etc.) and 22.2% were casual labourers. About 34% of the available labour force in Kolkata slums were unemployed. According to one estimate, almost a quarter of the population live on less than 27 rupees (equivalent to 45 US cents) per day.

Major manufacturing companies in the city are Alstom, Larsen & Toubro, Fosroc, Videocon. As in many other Indian cities, information technology became a high-growth sector in Kolkata starting in the late 1990s; the city's IT sector grew at 70% per annum—a rate that was twice the national average. The 2000s saw a surge of investments in the real estate, infrastructure, retail, and hospitality sectors; several large shopping malls and hotels were launched. Companies such as ITC Limited, CESC Limited, Exide Industries, Emami, Eveready Industries India, Lux Industries, Rupa Company, Berger Paints, Birla Corporation, Britannia Industries and Purushottam Publishers are headquartered in the city. Philips India, PricewaterhouseCoopers India, Tata Global Beverages, and Tata Steel have their registered office and zonal headquarters in Kolkata. Kolkata hosts the headquarters of two major banks: UCO Bank, and Bandhan Bank. Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India have its eastern zonal office in Kolkata. India Government Mint, Kolkata is one of the four mints in India. Some of the oldest public sector companies are headquartered in the city such as the Coal India Limited, National Insurance Company, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, Tea Board of India, Geological Survey of India, Zoological Survey of India, Botanical Survey of India, Jute Corporation of India, National Test House, Hindustan Copper and the Ordnance Factories Board of the Indian Ministry of Defence.

Population
The demonym for residents of Kolkata are Calcuttan and Kolkatan. According to provisional results of the 2011 national census, Kolkata district, which occupies an area of 185 sqkm, had a population of 4,486,679; its population density was 24252 /sqkm. This represents a decline of 1.88% during the decade 2001–11. The sex ratio is 899 females per 1000 males—lower than the national average. The ratio is depressed by the influx of working males from surrounding rural areas, from the rest of West Bengal; these men commonly leave their families behind. Kolkata's literacy rate of 87.14% exceeds the national average of 74%. The final population totals of census 2011 stated the population of city as 4,496,694. The urban agglomeration had a population of 14,112,536 in 2011.

, about one-third of the population, or 15 lakh (1.5 million) people, lived in 3,500 unregistered squatter-occupied and 2,011 registered slums. The authorised slums (with access to basic services like water, latrines, trash removal by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation) can be broadly divided into two groups—bustees, in which slum dwellers have some long term tenancy agreement with the landowners; and udbastu colonies, settlements which had been leased to refugees from present-day Bangladesh by the government. The unauthorised slums (devoid of basic services provided by the municipality) are occupied by squatters who started living on encroached lands—mainly along canals, railway lines and roads. According to the 2005 National Family Health Survey, around 14% of the households in Kolkata were poor, while 33% lived in slums, indicating a substantial proportion of households in slum areas were better off economically than the bottom quarter of urban households in terms of wealth status. Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding and working with the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata—an organisation "whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after".

Languages
Bengali, the official state language, is the dominant language in Kolkata. English is also used, particularly by the white-collar workforce. Hindi and Urdu are spoken by a sizeable minority. Bengali Hindus form the majority of Kolkata's population; Marwaris, Biharis and Urdu-speaking Muslims compose large minorities. Among Kolkata's smaller communities are Chinese, Tamils, Nepalis, Pathans/Afghans (locally known as Kabuliwala ) Odias, Telugus, Gujaratis, Anglo-Indians, Armenians, Bengali Muslims, Greeks, Tibetans, Maharashtrians, Konkanis, Malayalees, Punjabis and Parsis. The number of Armenians, Greeks, Jews and other foreign-origin groups declined during the 20th century. The Jewish population of Kolkata was 5,000 during World War II, but declined after Indian independence and the establishment of Israel; by 2013, there were 25 Jews in the city. India's sole Chinatown is in eastern Kolkata; once home to 20,000 ethnic Chinese, its population dropped to around 2,000 as a result of multiple factors including repatriation and denial of Indian citizenship following the 1962 Sino-Indian War, and immigration to foreign countries for better economic opportunities. The Chinese community traditionally worked in the local tanning industry and ran Chinese restaurants.

Religions
According to the 2011 census, 76.51% of the population is Hindu, 20.60% Muslim, 0.88% Christian and 0.47% Jain. The remainder of the population includes Sikhs, Buddhists, and other religions which accounts for 0.45% of the population; 1.09% did not state a religion in the census. Kolkata reported 67.6% of Special and Local Laws crimes registered in 35 large Indian cities during 2004.

Civic administration
Kolkata is administered by several government agencies. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation, or KMC, oversees and manages the civic infrastructure of the city's 16 boroughs, which together encompass 144 wards. Each ward elects a councillor to the KMC. Each borough has a committee of councillors, each of whom is elected to represent a ward. By means of the borough committees, the corporation undertakes urban planning and maintains roads, government-aided schools, hospitals, and municipal markets. As Kolkata's apex body, the corporation discharges its functions through the mayor-in-council, which comprises a mayor, a deputy mayor, and ten other elected members of the KMC. The functions of the KMC include water supply, drainage and sewerage, sanitation, solid waste management, street lighting, and building regulation.

Kolkata's administrative agencies have areas of jurisdiction that do not coincide. Listed in ascending order by area, they are: Kolkata district; the Kolkata Police area and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area, or "Kolkata city"; and the Kolkata metropolitan area, which is the city's urban agglomeration. The agency overseeing the latter, the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, is responsible for the statutory planning and development of greater Kolkata. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation was ranked first out of 21 cities for best governance and administrative practices in India in 2014. It scored 4.0 on 10 compared to the national average of 3.3.

The Kolkata Port Trust, an agency of the central government, manages the city's river port. , the All India Trinamool Congress controls the KMC; the mayor is Firhad Hakim, while the deputy mayor is Atin Ghosh. The city has an apolitical titular post, that of the Sheriff of Kolkata, which presides over various city-related functions and conferences.

As the seat of the Government of West Bengal, Kolkata is home to not only the offices of the local governing agencies, but also the West Bengal Legislative Assembly; the state secretariat, which is housed in the Writers' Building; and the Calcutta High Court. Most government establishments and institutions are housed in the centre of the city in B. B. D. Bagh (formerly known as Dalhousie Square). The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It was preceded by the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William which was established in 1774. The Calcutta High Court has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Kolkata has lower courts: the Court of Small Causes and the City Civil Court decide civil matters; the Sessions Court rules in criminal cases. The Kolkata Police, headed by a police commissioner, is overseen by the West Bengal Ministry of Home Affairs. The Kolkata district elects two representatives to India's lower house, the Lok Sabha, and 11 representatives to the state legislative assembly. The Kolkata police district registered 15,510 Indian Penal Code cases in 2010, the 8th-highest total in the country. In 2010, the crime rate was 117.3 per 100,000, below the national rate of 187.6; it was the lowest rate among India's largest cities.

Utility services
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation supplies the city with potable water that is sourced from the Hooghly River; most of it is treated and purified at the Palta pumping station located in North 24 Parganas district. Roughly 95% of the 4,000 tonnes of refuse produced daily by the city is transported to the dumping grounds in Dhapa, which is east of the town. To promote the recycling of garbage and sewer water, agriculture is encouraged on the dumping grounds. Parts of the city lack proper sewerage, leading to unsanitary methods of waste disposal.

In 1856, the Bengal Government appointed George Turnbull to be the Commissioner of Drainage and Sewerage to improve the city's sewerage. Turnbull's main job was to be the Chief Engineer of the East Indian Railway Company responsible for building the first railway 541 mi from Howrah to Varanasi (then Benares).

Electricity is supplied by the privately operated Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, or CESC, to the city proper; the West Bengal State Electricity Board supplies it in the suburbs. Fire services are handled by the West Bengal Fire Service, a state agency. , the city had 16 fire stations.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, or BSNL, as well as private enterprises, among them Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio are the leading telephone and cell phone service providers in the city. with Kolkata being the first city in India to have cell phone and 4G connectivity, the GSM and CDMA cellular coverage is extensive. , Kolkata has 7 percent of the total broadband internet consumers in India; BSNL, VSNL, Tata Indicom, Sify, Hathway, Airtel, and Jio are among the main vendors.

Military and diplomatic establishments
The Eastern Command of the Indian Army is based in the city. Being one of India's major city and the largest city in eastern and north-eastern India, Kolkata hosts diplomatic missions of many countries such as Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Canada, People's Republic of China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States. The U.S Consulate in Kolkata is the US Department of State's second-oldest Consulate and dates from 19 November 1792. The Diplomatic representation of more than 65 Countries and International Organization is present in Kolkata as Consulate office, honorary Consulate office, Cultural Centre, Deputy High Commission and Economic section and Trade Representation office.

Transport
Public transport is provided by the Kolkata Suburban Railway, the Kolkata Metro, trams, rickshaws, taxis and buses. The suburban rail network connects the city's distant suburbs.

Rapid transit

Kolkata Metro is the rapid transit system of Kolkat. According to a 2013 survey conducted by the International Association of Public Transport, in terms of a public transport system, Kolkata ranks top among the six Indian cities surveyed. The Kolkata Metro, in operation since 1984, is the oldest underground mass transit system in India. The fully operational blue line spans the north–south length through the middle of the city. In 2020, part of the Second line was inaugurated to cover part of Salt Lake city, Kolkata metro area. This east–west green line connects two satellite cities of Kolkata namely Salt Lake and Howrah. Other operational lines are Purple line and Orange line.

Commuter rail
Kolkata Suburban Railway is the largest and second busiest suburban railway network in the country by number of stations and track length, and also one of the largest in the world. Kolkata has five long-distance inter-city railway stations, located at Howrah (the largest and busiest railway complex in India as of 2024), Sealdah (2nd busiest in India as of 2024), Kolkata, Shalimar and Santragachi, which connect Kolkata by rail to most cities in West Bengal and to other major cities in India. The city serves as the headquarters of three railway zones out of eighteen of the Indian Railways regional divisions namely the Kolkata Metro, Eastern Railway and the South-Eastern Railway. Kolkata has international rail connectivity with Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Tram
Kolkata is the only Indian city with a tram network, which was operated by the Calcutta Tramways Company. It has now amalgamated to West Bengal Transport Corporation. There are three operational routes: Tollygunge to Ballygunge, Gariahat to Esplanade, Shyambazar to Esplanade. Trams are environment friendly but due to slowmoving and traffic congestion, tram attacts less passengers. Water-logging, caused by heavy rains during the summer monsoon, sometimes interrupt transportation networks.

Roads and expressways
Kolkata along its metropolitan area is home to the third largest road network in India. As of 2022, total road network in the city's metropolitan area is 4018 km, which is third largest in India, while the city proper has road network of 1850 km. The city has witnessed a steady increase in the number of registered vehicles: from 17 lakhs in 2019 to 21 lakhs in 2022, an 18.52 per cent jump. With 2,448 vehicles per kilometre of road, Kolkata has the highest car density in India. This leads major traffic congestion. The Kolkata Metro has somewhat eased traffic congestion, as has the addition of new roads and flyovers. Agencies operating long-distance bus services include the West Bengal Transport Corporation and various private operators. The city's main bus terminals are located at Esplanade and Howrah. The Kolkata–Delhi and Kolkata–Chennai prongs of the Golden Quadrilateral, and National Highway 12 start from the outskirts of the city.

As of 2024, Kolkata has one state expressway and two national expressways, all in its metropolitan area. Kalyani Expressway is only state expressway, which is partially operational and partially under construction. The national expressways are Belghoria, part of AH1 and NH12; Kona Expressway, part of NH12, both fully operational. Some national expressways are planned or in various stages of construction to connect directly with many major metropolises and cities of India. Those are: Varanasi-Kolkata Expressway and Patna Kolkata Expressway.

Kolkata has international road connectivity to Dhaka, Bangladesh by Jessore Road; to Bangkok, Thailand and Myanmar by Kolkata-Thailand-Bangkok Trilateral Highway (an extension of IMT Highway) and to Nepal and Bhutan by NH12 and proposed Haldia–Raxaul Expressway.

Hired public conveyances include auto rickshaws, which often ply specific routes, and yellow metered taxis. Almost all of Kolkata's taxis are antiquated Hindustan Ambassadors by make; newer air-conditioned radio taxis are in service as well. In parts of the city, cycle rickshaws and hand-pulled rickshaws are patronised by the public for short trips.

Air
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, located in Dum Dum, about 16 km north-east of the city centre, operates domestic and international flights. In 2013, the airport was upgraded to handle increased air traffic.

Water
The Port of Kolkata, established in 1870, is India's oldest and the only major river port. The Kolkata Port Trust manages docks in Kolkata and Haldia. The port hosts passenger services to Port Blair, capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; freighter service to ports throughout India and around the world is operated by the Shipping Corporation of India. Ferry services connect Kolkata with its twin city of Howrah, located across the Hooghly River.

Healthcare
, the healthcare system in Kolkata consists of 48 government hospitals, mostly under the Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal, and 366 private medical establishments; these establishments provide the city with 27,687 hospital beds. For every 10,000 people in the city, there are 61.7 hospital beds, which is higher than the national average of 9 hospital beds per 10,000. Ten medical and dental colleges are located in the Kolkata metropolitan area which act as tertiary referral hospitals in the state. The Calcutta Medical College, founded in 1835, was the first institution in Asia to teach modern medicine. However, These facilities are inadequate to meet the healthcare needs of the city. More than 78% in Kolkata prefer the private medical sector over the public medical sector, due to the overburdening of the public health sector, the lack of a nearby facility, and excessive waiting times at government facilities.

According to the Indian 2005 National Family Health Survey, only a small proportion of Kolkata households were covered under any health scheme or health insurance. The total fertility rate in Kolkata was 1.4, the lowest among the eight cities surveyed. In Kolkata, 77% of the married women used contraceptives, which was the highest among the cities surveyed, but use of modern contraceptive methods was the lowest (46%). The infant mortality rate in Kolkata was 41 per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate for children under five was 49 per 1,000 live births.

Among the surveyed cities, Kolkata stood second (5%) for children who had not had any vaccinations under the Universal Immunization Programme. Kolkata ranked second with access to an anganwadi centre under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme for 57% of the children between 0 and 71 months. The proportion of malnourished, anaemic and underweight children in Kolkata was less in comparison to other surveyed cities.

About 18% of the men and 30% of the women in Kolkata are obese—the majority of them belonging to the non-poor strata of society. In 2005, Kolkata had the highest percentage (55%) among the surveyed cities of anaemic women, while 20% of the men in Kolkata were anaemic. Diseases like diabetes, asthma, goitre and other thyroid disorders were found in large numbers of people. Tropical diseases like malaria, dengue and chikungunya are prevalent in Kolkata, though their incidence is decreasing. Kolkata is one of the districts in India with a high number of people with AIDS; it has been designated a district prone to high risk. As of 2014, because of higher air pollution, the life expectancy of a person born in the city is four years fewer than in the suburbs.

Education
Kolkata's schools are run by the state government or private organisations, many of which are religious. Bengali and English are the primary languages of instruction; Urdu and Hindi are also used, particularly in central Kolkata. Schools in Kolkata follow the "10+2+3" plan. After completing their secondary education, students typically enroll in schools that have a higher secondary facility and are affiliated with the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, the ICSE, or the CBSE. They usually choose a focus on liberal arts, business, or science. Vocational programs are also available. Some Kolkata schools, for example South Point School, La Martiniere Calcutta, Calcutta Boys' School, St. James' School (Kolkata), St. Xavier's Collegiate School and Loreto House, have been ranked amongst the best schools in the country.

, the Kolkata urban agglomeration is home to 14 universities run by the state government. The colleges are each affiliated with a university or institution based either in Kolkata or elsewhere in India. Aliah University which was founded in 1780 as Mohammedan College of Calcutta is the oldest post-secondary educational institution of the city. The University of Calcutta, founded in 1857, is the first modern university in South Asia. Presidency College, Kolkata (formerly Hindu College between 1817 and 1855), founded in 1855, was one of the oldest colleges in India. It was affiliated with the University of Calcutta until 2010 when it was converted to Presidency University, Kolkata in 2010. Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) is the second oldest engineering institution of the country located in Howrah. An Institute of National Importance, BESU was converted to India's first IIEST. Jadavpur University is known for its arts, science, and engineering faculties. The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, which was the first of the Indian Institutes of Management, was established in 1961 at Joka, a locality in the south-western suburbs. Kolkata also houses the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, which was started here in the year 2006.

The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences is one of India's autonomous law schools, and the Indian Statistical Institute is a public research institute and university. State owned Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal (MAKAUT, WB), formerly West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT) is the largest Technological University in terms of student enrollment and number of Institutions affiliated by it. Private institutions include the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute and University of Engineering & Management (UEM).

Notable scholars
Notable scholars who were born, worked or studied in Kolkata include physicists Satyendra Nath Bose, Meghnad Saha, and Jagadish Chandra Bose; chemist Prafulla Chandra Roy; statisticians Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis and Anil Kumar Gain; physician Upendranath Brahmachari; educator Ashutosh Mukherjee; and Nobel laureates Rabindranath Tagore, C. V. Raman, and Amartya Sen.

Research institutes
Kolkata houses many research institutes, including the following.

 * All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health
 * Bose Institute
 * Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI)
 * Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
 * Dr. B C Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences
 * Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS)
 * Nobel laureate Sir C. V. Raman did his groundbreaking work in Raman effect at IACS.
 * Indian Centre for Space Physics
 * Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB)
 * Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)
 * Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM)
 * National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Kolkata
 * Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP)
 * S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences (SNBNCBS)
 * Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC)

Culture
Kolkata is known for its literary, artistic and revolutionary heritage; as the former capital of India, it was the birthplace of modern Indian literary and artistic thought. Kolkata has been called the "City of Furious, Creative Energy" as well as the "cultural [or literary] capital of India". The presence of paras, which are neighbourhoods that possess a strong sense of community, is characteristic of the city. Typically, each para has its own community club and on occasion, a playing field. Residents engage in addas, or leisurely chats, that often take the form of freestyle intellectual conversation. The city has a tradition of political graffiti depicting everything from outrageous slander to witty banter and limericks, caricatures and propaganda.

Kolkata has many buildings adorned with Indo-Islamic and Indo-Saracenic architectural motifs. Several well-maintained major buildings from the colonial period have been declared "heritage structures"; others are in various stages of decay. Established in 1814 as the nation's oldest museum, the Indian Museum houses large collections that showcase Indian natural history and Indian art. Marble Palace is a classic example of a European mansion that was built in the city. The Victoria Memorial, a place of interest in Kolkata, has a museum documenting the city's history. The National Library of India is the leading public library in the country while Science City is the largest science centre in the Indian subcontinent.

The popularity of commercial theatres in the city has declined since the 1980s. Group theatres of Kolkata, a cultural movement that started in the 1940s contrasting with the then-popular commercial theatres, are theatres that are not professional or commercial, and are centres of various experiments in theme, content, and production; group theatres use the proscenium stage to highlight socially relevant messages. Chitpur locality of the city houses multiple production companies of jatra, a tradition of folk drama popular in rural Bengal. Kolkata is the home of the Bengali cinema industry, dubbed "Tollywood" for Tollygunj, where most of the state's film studios are located. Its long tradition of art films includes globally acclaimed film directors such as Academy Award-winning director Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha and contemporary directors such as Aparna Sen, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Goutam Ghose and Rituparno Ghosh. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Bengali literature was modernised through the works of authors such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Coupled with social reforms led by Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda and others, this constituted a major part of the Bengal Renaissance. The middle and latter parts of the 20th century witnessed the arrival of post-modernism, as well as literary movements such as those espoused by the Kallol movement, hungryalists and the little magazines. Large majority of publishers of the city is concentrated in and around College Street, "... a half-mile of bookshops and bookstalls spilling over onto the pavement", selling new and used books. Kalighat painting originated in 19th century Kolkata as a local style that reflected a variety of themes including mythology and quotidian life. The Government College of Art and Craft, founded in 1864, has been the cradle as well as workplace of eminent artists including Abanindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy and Nandalal Bose. The art college was the birthplace of the Bengal school of art that arose as an avant garde and nationalist movement reacting against the prevalent academic art styles in the early 20th century. The Academy of Fine Arts and other art galleries hold regular art exhibitions. The city is recognised for its appreciation of Rabindra sangeet (songs written by Rabindranath Tagore) and Indian classical music, with important concerts and recitals, such as Dover Lane Music Conference, being held throughout the year; Bengali popular music, including baul folk ballads, kirtans and Gajan festival music; and modern music, including Bengali-language adhunik songs. Since the early 1990s, new genres have emerged, including one comprising alternative folk–rock Bengali bands. Another new style, jibonmukhi gaan ("songs about life"), is based on realism.

Key elements of Kolkata's cuisine include rice and a fish curry known as machher jhol, which can be accompanied by desserts such as roshogolla, sandesh, and a sweet yoghurt known as mishti dohi. Bengal's large repertoire of seafood dishes includes various preparations of ilish, a fish that is a favourite among Calcuttans. Street foods such as beguni (fried battered eggplant slices), kati roll (flatbread roll with vegetable or chicken, mutton or egg stuffing), phuchka (a deep-fried crêpe with tamarind sauce) and Indian Chinese cuisine from Chinatown are popular.

Though Bengali women traditionally wear the sari, the shalwar kameez and Western attire is gaining acceptance among younger women. Western-style dress has greater acceptance among men, although the traditional dhoti and kurta are seen during festivals. Durga Puja, held in September–October, is Kolkata's most important and largest festival; it is an occasion for glamorous celebrations and artistic decorations. The Bengali New Year, known as Poila Boishak, as well as the harvest festival of Poush Parbon are among the city's other festivals; also celebrated are Kali Puja, Diwali, Chhaith, Jitiya, Holi, Jagaddhatri Puja, Saraswati Puja, Rathayatra, Janmashtami, Maha Shivratri, Vishwakarma Puja, Lakshmi Puja, Ganesh Chathurthi, Makar Sankranti, Gajan, Kalpataru Day, Bhai Phonta, Maghotsab, Eid, Muharram, Christmas, Buddha Purnima and Mahavir Jayanti. Cultural events include the Rabindra Jayanti, Independence Day (15 August), Republic Day (26 January), Kolkata Book Fair, the Dover Lane Music Festival, the Kolkata Film Festival, Nandikar's National Theatre Festival, Statesman Vintage & Classic Car Rally and Gandhi Jayanti.

Media

The first newspaper in India, the Bengal Gazette started publishing from the city in 1780. Among Kolkata's widely circulated Bengali-language newspapers are Anandabazar Patrika, Bartaman, Ei Samay Sangbadpatra, Sangbad Pratidin, Aajkaal, Dainik Statesman and Ganashakti. The Statesman and The Telegraph are two major English-language newspapers that are produced and published from Kolkata. Other popular English-language newspapers published and sold in Kolkata include The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express and the Asian Age. As the largest trading centre in East India, Kolkata has several high-circulation financial dailies, including The Economic Times, The Financial Express, Business Line and Business Standard. Vernacular newspapers, such as those in the Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Odia, Punjabi and Chinese languages, are read by minorities. Major periodicals based in Kolkata include Desh, Sananda, Saptahik Bartaman, Unish-Kuri, Anandalok and Anandamela. Historically, Kolkata has been the centre of the Bengali little magazine movement.

All India Radio, the national state-owned radio broadcaster, airs several AM radio stations in the city. Kolkata has 10 local radio stations broadcasting on FM, including three from AIR. India's state-owned television broadcaster, Doordarshan, provides two free-to-air terrestrial channels, while a mix of Bengali, Hindi, English, and other regional channels are accessible via cable subscription, direct-broadcast satellite services, or internet-based television. Bengali-language 24-hour television news channels include ABP Ananda, News18 Bangla, Kolkata TV, Zee 24 Ghanta, TV9 Bangla and Republic Bangla.

Sports
The most popular sports in Kolkata are football and cricket. Unlike most parts of India, the residents show significant passion for football. Indian Football Association, the oldest football association of the country is based here. It administers football in West Bengal. Kolkata is home to India's top football clubs such as Mohun Bagan A.C., East Bengal Club and the Mohammedan Sporting Club. The Calcutta Football League, which is the oldest football league in Asia was started in 1898. Mohun Bagan A.C., one of the oldest football clubs in Asia, is the only organisation to be dubbed as "National Club of India". Two clubs of the city - Mohun Bagan Super Giant and East Bengal FC compete in the Indian Super League (ISL). Football matches between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, called as the Kolkata Derby, witness large audience attendance and rivalry between patrons. The multi-use Salt Lake Stadium, also known as Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, is India's second largest stadium by seating capacity. Most matches of the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup were played in this stadium including both Semi-final matches and the Final match. Kolkata also accounted for 45% of total attendance in 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup with an average of 55,345 spectators. The Calcutta Cricket and Football Club is the second-oldest cricket club in the world.

As in the rest of India, cricket is popular in Kolkata and is played on various grounds throughout the city. Kolkata is home to Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kolkata Knight Riders and also the Cricket Association of Bengal which regulates cricket in West Bengal and the Bengal cricket team. Tournaments, especially those involving cricket, football, badminton and carrom, are regularly organised here on an inter-locality or inter-club basis. The Maidan, a vast field that serves as the city's largest park, hosts several minor football and cricket clubs and coaching institutes. Eden Gardens, which has a capacity of 80,000, hosted the final match of the 1987 Cricket World Cup.

Kolkata's Netaji Indoor Stadium served as host of the 1981 Asian Basketball Championship, where India's national basketball team finished 5th, ahead of teams that belong to Asia's basketball elite, such as Iran. The city has three 18-hole golf courses. The oldest is at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, the first golf club built outside the United Kingdom. The other two are located at the Tollygunge Club and at Fort William. The Royal Calcutta Turf Club hosts horse racing and polo matches. The Calcutta Polo Club is considered the oldest extant polo club in the world. The Calcutta Racket Club is a squash and racquet club in Kolkata. It was founded in 1793, making it one of the oldest rackets clubs in the world, and the first in the Indian subcontinent. The Calcutta South Club is a venue for national and international tennis tournaments; it held the first grass-court national championship in 1946. In the period 2005–2007, Sunfeast Open, a tier-III tournament on the Women's Tennis Association circuit, was held in the Netaji Indoor Stadium; it has since been discontinued.

The Calcutta Rowing Club hosts rowing heats and training events. Kolkata, considered the leading centre of rugby union in India, gives its name to the oldest international tournament in rugby union, the Calcutta Cup. The Automobile Association of Eastern India, established in 1904, and the Bengal Motor Sports Club are involved in promoting motor sports and car rallies in Kolkata and West Bengal. The Beighton Cup, an event organised by the Bengal Hockey Association and first played in 1895, is India's oldest field hockey tournament; it is usually held on the Mohun Bagan Ground of the Maidan. Athletes from Kolkata include Sourav Ganguly, Pankaj Roy and Jhulan Goswami, who are former captains of the Indian national cricket team; Olympic tennis bronze medalist Leander Paes, golfer Arjun Atwal, and former footballers Sailen Manna, Chuni Goswami, P. K. Banerjee and Subrata Bhattacharya.

Foreign missions
There are 70 diplomatic missions in Kolkata, of which 24 are consulate missions, 1 is high commission and rest are honorary consulates. The U.S Consulate in Kolkata dates from November 19, 1792 and is the U.S. Department of State's second oldest consulate in the world and the oldest U.S Consulate in India. The Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) is in charge of immigration and registration activities in the city.

Sister cities
Kolkata has sister city relationships with the following cities of the world:
 * 🇧🇩 Dhaka, Bangladesh
 * 🇨🇳 Kunming, China (October 2013)
 * 🇬🇷 Thessaloniki, Greece (January 2005)
 * 🇮🇹 Naples, Italy
 * 🇵🇰 Karachi, Pakistan
 * 🇰🇷 Incheon, South Korea
 * 🇺🇦 Odesa, Ukraine
 * 🇺🇸 Jersey City, New Jersey, United States
 * 🇺🇸 Long Beach, California, United States
 * 🇺🇸 Dallas, Texas, United States

title: Kolkata


text:
Talk:Bishop (chess)

K+B win
how easy is it to win with a King and Bishop versus a King? Kingturtle 01:43 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

 * It is impossible to checkmate with a king and a bishop versus a king, even if both players cooperate to try to set up a checkmate position. --Fritzlein 23:08 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm not much of a chess player, can I say, I think the above point about the impossibility of mate with just king and bishop might be worth mentioning in the main article. I didn't know that, and it would have made more sense of the last section on end games. This may be known to serious chess players, but I'm not one of them, and other readers won't all be either. Anyway less people will know this than will know how a bishop moves. Stevie 203.211.96.227 (talk) 15:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

 * I added a sentence about this in the "versus rook" section. Krakatoa (talk) 17:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

(if your here to look for the answer to rule 16 for the password game this is no help) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6C0:C285:1460:780F:BE3A:C8F4:2D2F (talk) 22:44, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

"Bishop" <-> "Ship" Question
Is it true that the bishop was a ship (diagonal travel)in the beginning of chess? They then have been replaced by bishops on behalf of the church (they had no representation on the board until then). I heard this somewhere and i suspect this is just a rumor .... but better to put it here. -- 62.46.48.93 19:20, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * I don't know that the bishop was ever a ship. I think it was originally an elephant.  You can see in Chinese chess and Korean chess even today they have an elephant where chess has a bishop.  Also I believe that in Europe the elephant was first called a "fool" because the word sounded sounded vaguely like the Persian for elephant, and the piece was represented by a jester's cap.  But then someone thought the jester's cap looked like a bishop's mitre, and that's how the piece was converted to being a bishop.  I haven't researched any of this; I just think I read it somewhere once... --Fritzlein 02:59, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Yeah, that's what i though initially too (and which is mentioned in the Chess page. ......Ok, i've found this source (not the one i refered to above though), but they also claim that "The rook or castle was originally an elephant, with a fortified chamber, tower, or castle on its back. [...]"  Which is a bit strange since the asian chess had a rook AND an elephant if i'm not completly wrong. (you can see the non-asian images in a german pdf file) --80.109.73.21 16:19, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * I'm no expert on chess history, but I've read a fair bit, and my copy of the Oxford Companion to Chess (I don't have anything better to hand just now) confirms our initial thoughts: the bishop replaced the fil, which took its name from the Persian for "elephant". The rook takes its name from the Persian rukh, "chariot". There is no mention of ships.

 * The misconception that the rook used to be an elephant seems to be a common one; I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just because in modern novelty chess sets the rook is sometimes represented as a war elephant. If somebody can check H.J.R. Murray's History of Chess or some similarly respected source, there may be more detail; perhaps there will even be mention of ships (I doubt it, but you never know). A source such as Murray I would trust; dodgy-looking webpages I find hard to trust. --Camembert

In my study of medieval history I have come across occasional references which state that when the crusaders went to the holy land they returned with versions of the game and it contained an elephant in place of the rook and a ship in the place of the bishop. Rumor has it that is the reason that the rook can only travel in straight lines. This also explains why the modern day Bishop moves diagonally. Because it was originally a ship tacking against the wind. Supposedly the church felt that the closest thing to a king and queen should be a Bishop, not a ship and thus it was changed by the Catholic Church at about the time of the end of the first crusade. Supposedly the rook was changed because few people in Europe had encountered elephants and since they usually had portable platforms for fighting on them, they were changed to "castles" which resembled the mobile wall breaching devices of the time. This was also mentioned in the Masonic book "Born in Blood" and I believe there were some references there. As they changed the Winter Festivals of rebirth into "Jesus' alleged birthday" (never mind Santa Claus, evergreens in your home and kissing under the mistletoe; BTW: scholars believe he was really born in the spring) along with Spring Festivals of fertility (i.e. Bunnies and eggs) being the celebration of his death and rebirth (who thought putting bunnies, eggs and crucifixion together was a good idea?!), It really isn't a long stretch to beleive they insisted on changing a ship to a Bishop! Remember it was a different time and going against the church could mean bad news...I think looking to Asian ad Persian history miht help you find something tangible. Good Luck

 * Thanks for the feedback. :) I have no such trustworthy source reachable, that's why i initially put the question here. And i do not trust ANY online content at all (includes wikipedia ;) ). The above link was just an example (the first thing i found with google), and i'm trying to 'eliminate' these rumors .. if they are rumors. Finally, as you said, it would be best if s/b who has one of these books could search a bit there. It would be greatly appreciated. --80.109.73.21 15:38, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Time to correct the rumour I spread as well then, I guess. The ship idea makes snese none the less, what with sailing against the wind and all...

 * According to A short History of Chess by Henry Davidson, (McKay, ISBN 0-679-14550-8) the bishop was an elephant (page 34). There is a controversy over whether a bishop rook was a ship or a chariot.  Neither is entirely satisfactory, but the chariot is slightly better, according to Davidson, page 44.  Bubba73 (talk), 15:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I think you mean "over whether a rook was a ship or a chariot." J S Ayer 12:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes. Bubba73 (talk), 03:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Raking bishops
The page has good material on several tactical and strategic motifs involving bishops. We should probably have a brief discussion of raking bishops, and single and double bishop sacrifices. Quale (talk) 03:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Which way's forwards?
This is a stupid question, but I've always wondered- which way is the groove supposed to face, forwards or backwards? Darien Shields (talk) 13:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

 * I do not believe it matters at all. Unlike with knights, I've never seen anyone care which way the bishop faces.  I used to like knights facing forward, but most people like them facing to the side.  I like that now.  Some people like both knights facing left or both right, or the one on the left facing right and vice-versa, but I don't care about that.  With bishops, I don't think anyone cares.  Bubba73 (talk), 15:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

 * PS, in the photo on the main article, I chose that angle so that the cut could be clearly seen, not to imply any particular orentation of the bishop. Bubba73 (talk), 15:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

fianchetto error
I think there is some kind of mistake in the fianchetto part. How can black play 3. ... g6 and 4. ... gxf6 ? It seems as if he has two g-pawns or something like that. I can't correct this since I don't know this game and so I don't know which move has to be corrected. -- 82.130.72.56 (talk) 12:58, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Bubba73 (talk), 15:14, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Groove
''The piece's deep groove symbolizes a bishop's (or abbot's) mitre. The groove originates from the original form of the piece, an elephant (the groove represented the elephant's tusks).''

Sounds like a contradiction, at least on a first read. 68.239.116.212 (talk) 03:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The etimology of "Alfiere"
It is plausible that also the Arabs have taken the word from Latin Ferens the soldier who carries the flag. In Italy the word "alfiere" means the bearer of flag. During Roman Empire was called Aquilifer. So the word is returned in Italy from Arabs as in English much latin words are returned with Normans conquest. See http://www.etimo.it/?term=alfiere

--Andriolo (talk) 14:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed can not to be two sets of knights. (Arab: Al-Faris means knight). In western world the Bishop is represented with an Partian catafratta armor. Which suggests also a possible derivation from war games on the board already present in classical antiquity as the roman Ludus latrunculorum war game played almost certainly in 64 squares chessboard. It is arrived perhaps from Ancient Greece, Anatolia, Egypt or Mesopotamia or born locally or born from other part. We don’t know. The Indian chess probably is only a local variant of game already widespread in the world since immemorial time. Howewer modern rules are established in mediterranean world during medieval period. In medieval Italy, as in ancient Greece, for the things that it haven't clear knowledge about the origin. The origin was attributed to a mythical Orient as today without historical bases.

--Andriolo (talk) 09:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Information about bishop groove
I don't agree to remove those sentences because they are cited in old sources. Please, if someone has an updated and reliable source, provide it and then change the article.OTAVIO1981 (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

 * I have some newer sources, but I think they all say the same thing. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 19:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

 * I think that too, so information should be maintened other sources be cited.OTAVIO1981 (talk) 21:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

In Estonian Bishopis called Oda (Spear). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.28.84.98 (talk) 12:32, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

If you look at some of these Bishops from: http://history.chess.free.fr/first-european.htm you can see the tusks were not "interpreted as" the mitre:

The "Elephant" with tusks is in the middle: http://history.chess.free.fr/first-european.htm

Now here is one in the abstract shape "interpreted" as a Bishop: http://history.chess.free.fr/images/medieval/R%20Pozzi-Alfil%20scandinave%2012s-dent%20narval.jpg

And here is the same thing with two sets of tusks and the Bishop has a mitre: http://history.chess.free.fr/images/medieval/Fou-Eveque-Cluny.jpg

Now you see Bishop with no enclosure of the older shape, and therefore no tusks, only the mitre: http://history.chess.free.fr/images/medieval/Fou12e-E%20Lhomme-01.jpg You can see the mitre has changed orientation so the "points" are in front and back and the "deep groove" runs horizontal. This change has nothing to do with chess, it's a change in the way actual Bishops actually wore their mitres and the piece has been a Bishop and not an elephant for a long time already.

This late 19th or early 20th century English Bishop: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PreStauntonBishop.jpg has a mitre which is a mitre and not a pair of tusks, a styled version of the older European Bishops with the carved mitres which were never interpretations of the tusks which pointed forward not up... incidentally there was an old islamic piece signature with a "deep groove" between "two equal points" that did point up. That would be the rook...

If any piece was going to "turn into" that shape of mitre it would have been the old rook where the points actually point up: http://history.chess.free.fr/images/medieval/freteval-rook02.jpg This is a rook, not a Bishop, and it looks much more like the 17th-19th century piece signature of a Bishop than the old Elephant with its tusks does.

The stuff about the French interpreting it as a jester is sillier still since the French pre-Staunton piece signature for a Bishop is a plain ball with a cut in the collar of the piece and looks nothing like a mitre at all. (here's some from the Crumiller collection 18th and 19th century... http://www.crumiller.com/chess/chess_pages/chess_french.htm ... do you see anything that looks remotely like a mitre on that page at all? I can't find any pics of non-figural 18th century French chessmen just now but believe me they have plain balls on top too.) The whole theory is really silly and not based in fact like the idea that Jonchets are chessmen, that chess started out in India as a four player game, and a million other misconceptions about old chessmen that get reprinted over and over.

Another thing to note is that the chessman was a Bishop in Europe *before* Bishops wore mitres that looked anything like two equal prongs with a deep groove in them, so again it makes no sense for people to have called it a Bishop because the horns looked like the Bishop hat. The Bishop hat didn't even look like that yet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.72.240.196 (talk) 06:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

 * This info needs to be clarified and referenced to a reliable source. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 06:44, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Why I placed the Refimprove
This article has sources, but many of them are different pages from the same book. With many sources available for this high-profile subject, I think the article could do better. --Mr. Guye (talk) 19:43, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Edit revert
Hey, just thought I'd open a discussion on an edit I made earlier that added "his or her" to one line that previous referred to players as "his". Context: "In the middle game, a player with only one bishop should generally place his or her pawns on squares of the color that the bishop cannot move to. This allows the player to control squares of both colors, allows the bishop to move freely among the pawns, and helps fix enemy pawns on squares on which they can be attacked by the bishop. Such a bishop is often referred to as a 'good' bishop." It's since been reverted, and I'd like to open a discussion as I assumed the edit was in line with WP:GNL, consistent with other chess articles such as Chess and I made it in good faith without thinking it would be particularly contentious. Is there some other way we can reword the sentence to improve it? Cheers, Boopitydoopityboop (talk) 00:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * If you think WP:GNL empowers blindly substituting "he or she"/"his or her" for "he"/"his", which is what you did & do, then yeah, I have problem w/ that - it always disimproves the text. The issue isn't specific to this article, numerous discussions have occurred at other locations including at Talk:Losing chess, WT:CHESS, WT:GGTF, WT:MOS. In this case I think "place their pawns" works okay. IHTS (talk) 00:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, so "place their pawns" is an acceptable alternative? Happy to update that Boopitydoopityboop (talk) 01:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. (But, I do think it is a net dis-improvement to the text.) IHTS (talk) 01:27, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've changed it to "place friendly pawns", because one important thing here is that you want your friendly pawns to block enemy pawns and fix them on the colour your bishop can attack. I think the use of "they" unnecessarily obscures this, if only a little. Double sharp (talk) 14:48, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Simple & good. (But "hard"/impossible, for average WP editor.) --IHTS (talk) 19:41, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Etymology of fou, French for bishop
French Wikipedia, at least, thinks this comes from fou in mediaeval French, fol (madman/jester), which they believe comes from the Arabic/Persian for bishop, al-fil or fil. This sounds much more likely than the current etymology (in a different section of the talk page, it is claimed that the idea that a bishop's mitre was mistaken for a fool's cap makes no sense at all). It would be good if somebody could find a reliable source suggesting this and add it as a possible etymology. Peterwshor (talk) 13:33, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

 * The french word Fou, which does mean fool or jester, actually comes from the Arabic, "alfil" for elephant, not bishop. Alfil still means elephant.  The old french word for elephant is "fil" which is pronounced a bit like "fou" It is a bit of a play on words to have a fool represent an elephant because thy sound the same.  This type of word play is quite common in French.  I have seen a number of other sources, but this is reliable:
 * https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/fou/34731
 * So Elephant in Arabic, became elephant in french, which became fool in french, and then it seems German as in German, the piece is called "läufer", fool. The lineage seems clear.
 * How did it become bishop? That's a good question.  But the lewis chess set has a bishop whose hat is totally different. So it was a bishop by the 1200s. At this time time, French was the royal language in England, and Norway was christianized from England. The Lewis pièces being found in a horde, were certainly valuable. It may simply have been the style of upper classes at the time to christianize game pieces as with everything else, while the old names persisted back on the continent. Wiredrabbit (talk) 15:09, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

positions listed twice
hey, so, yeah, the bishops' positions are listed twice. Not a big deal, but it does seem pretty redundant. My suggestion is omitting it from the intro paragraph, but I'm open to suggestions/democratic decision on this one. cheers. Electricmaster (talk) 15:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Bishop (chess)


text:
Elizabeth of York

Elizabeth of York (11 February 1466 – 11 February 1503) was Queen of England from her marriage to King Henry VII on 18 January 1486 until her death in 1503. She was the daughter of King Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, and her marriage to Henry VII followed his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which marked the end of the Wars of the Roses. Together, Elizabeth and Henry had seven children.

Elizabeth's younger brothers, the "Princes in the Tower", mysteriously disappeared from the Tower of London shortly after their uncle Richard III seized the throne in 1483. Although the 1484 act of Parliament Titulus Regius declared the marriage of her parents as invalid, Elizabeth and her sisters were welcomed back to court by Richard III. It was rumoured that Richard was plotting to marry Elizabeth. The final victory of the Lancastrian faction in the Wars of the Roses may have seemed a further disaster for the Yorkist princess. However, Henry Tudor knew the importance of Yorkist support for his invasion and promised to marry Elizabeth before he arrived in England. This may well have contributed to the haemorrhaging of Yorkist support for Richard.

Elizabeth seems to have played little part in politics. Her marriage appears to have been a successful and happy one, although her eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, died at age 15 in 1502, and three other children died young. Her second and only surviving son, Henry VIII, became king of England, while her daughters Margaret and Mary, became the queens of Scotland and France respectively.

Birth
Elizabeth of York was born at the Palace of Westminster as the eldest child of King Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville. Her christening was celebrated at Westminster Abbey, sponsored by her grandmothers, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Duchess of Bedford, and Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. Her third sponsor was her cousin, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick.

In 1469, aged three, she was briefly betrothed to George Neville, who was created the Duke of Bedford in anticipation of the marriage. His father, John later supported George's uncle, the Earl of Warwick, in a rebellion against King Edward IV, and the betrothal was called off. In 1475, Louis XI agreed to the marriage of nine-year-old Elizabeth of York to his son Charles, the Dauphin of France. In 1482, however, Louis XI reneged on his promise. She was named a Lady of the Garter in 1477, at age eleven, along with her mother and her paternal aunt Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk.

Sister of King Edward V
On 9 April 1483, Elizabeth's father, King Edward IV, died unexpectedly. Her younger brother, Edward V, ascended the throne, and her uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed regent and protector of his nephews. Gloucester took steps to isolate his nephews from their Woodville relations, including their own mother.

He intercepted Edward V while the latter was travelling from Ludlow, where he had been living as Prince of Wales, to London to be crowned king. Edward V was placed in the royal residence of the Tower of London, ostensibly for his protection, while his uncle Anthony Woodville, and half-brother Richard Grey, who had both been escorting him, were arrested and sent to Pontefract Castle. Elizabeth Woodville fled with her younger son Richard and her daughters, taking sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. Gloucester asked Thomas Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to take Richard with him, so that the boy could reside in the Tower and keep his brother Edward company. Elizabeth Woodville, under duress, eventually agreed.

Two months later, on 22 June 1483, Edward IV's marriage was declared invalid. It was claimed that Edward IV had, at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, already been betrothed to Lady Eleanor Butler. Parliament issued a bill, Titulus Regius ("Royal Title"), in support of this position. This measure legally bastardized the children of Edward IV, made them ineligible for the succession, and declared Gloucester the rightful king, with the right of succession reverting to the children of George, 1st Duke of Clarence, another late brother of Gloucester, who had been attainted in 1478. Elizabeth's uncle, Anthony Woodville, and her half-brother Richard Grey, were executed on Gloucester's orders on 25 June. Gloucester was crowned king as Richard III on 6 July 1483, and Edward and Richard disappeared soon afterwards. Rumours began to spread that they had been murdered, and these appear to have been increasingly widely credited, even though some undoubtedly emanated from overseas.

Niece of King Richard III
According to only a single much later Tudor source, Polydore Vergil, Elizabeth's mother made an alliance with Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, later King Henry VII, who presented himself as the closest claimant to the throne among the Lancastrian party. Although Henry Tudor was descended from King Edward III, his claim to the throne was weak, owing to Letters Patent of King Henry IV in 1407, which barred accession to the throne to any heirs of the legitimised offspring of Henry's great-great-grandparents, John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Whether these Letters Patent had force of law is disputed. Furthermore, there were legitimate Lancastrian lines into the Royal Houses of Portugal and Castile. Whatever the merits of Henry's claim, according to Vergil, his mother and Elizabeth Woodville agreed he should move to claim the throne and, once he had taken it, marry Elizabeth of York to boost his feeble claim. In December 1483, in the cathedral of Rennes, Henry Tudor swore an oath promising to marry her and began planning an invasion.

In 1484, Elizabeth of York and her sisters left Westminster Abbey and returned to court when Elizabeth Woodville was apparently reconciled with Richard III. This may or may not suggest that Elizabeth Woodville believed Richard III to be innocent of any possible role in the murder of her two sons. It was rumoured that Richard III intended to marry Elizabeth of York because his wife, Anne Neville, was dying and they had no surviving children. The Crowland Chronicle claimed that Richard III was forced to deny this unsavoury rumour. Soon after Anne Neville's death, Richard III sent Elizabeth away from court to the Sheriff Hutton Castle and opened negotiations with King John II of Portugal to marry his sister, Joan, Princess of Portugal, and to have Elizabeth marry their cousin, the future King Manuel I of Portugal.

Henry Tudor and his army landed in Wales on 7 August 1485 and marched inland. On 22 August, Henry Tudor and Richard III fought the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard III had the larger army, but was betrayed by one of his most powerful nobles, William Stanley, and died in battle. Henry Tudor took the crown by right of conquest as Henry VII.

Marriage to Henry VII
Though initially slow to keep his promise, Henry VII acknowledged the necessity of marrying Elizabeth of York to ensure the stability of his rule and weaken the claims of other surviving members of the House of York. It seems Henry wished to be seen as ruling in his own right, having claimed the throne by right of conquest and not by his marriage to the de facto heiress of the House of York. He had no intention of sharing power.

Henry VII had the Act of Titulus Regius repealed, thereby legitimising anew the children of Edward IV, and acknowledging Edward V as his predecessor. Though Richard III was regarded as a usurper, his reign was not ignored. Henry and Elizabeth required a papal dispensation to wed because of Canon Law frowning upon affinity: Henry and Elizabeth were descended from, respectively, John of Gaunt and his younger brother Edmund in the 4th degree, an issue that had caused much dispute and bloodshed as to which claim was superior. Two applications were sent, the first more locally, and the second one was slow in reaching Rome and slow to return with the response of the Pope. Ultimately, however, the marriage was approved by papal bull of Pope Innocent VIII dated March 1486 (one month after the wedding) stating that the Pope and his advisors "Approveth confirmyth and stablishyth the matrimonye and coniuncion made betwene our sou[er]ayn lord King Henre the seuenth of the house of Lancastre of that one party And the noble Princesse Elyzabeth of the house of Yorke." Because the journey to Rome and back took many months, and because Henry as king wanted to be certain that nobody could claim that his wedding to Elizabeth was unlawful or sinful, the more local application was obeyed first—it was sent to the papal legate for England and Scotland, which returned in January 1486. Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated at the wedding of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on 18 January 1486. Their first son, Arthur, was born on 20 September 1486, eight months after their marriage. Elizabeth of York was crowned queen on 25 November 1487. She gave birth to several more children, but only four survived infancy: Arthur, Margaret, Henry and Mary.

Relationship with Henry Tudor
Despite their marriage being a political arrangement, records indicate both partners appear to have slowly fallen in love with each other. Thomas Penn, in his biography of Henry VII writes that "[t]hough founded on pragmatism, Henry and Elizabeth's marriage had nevertheless blossomed throughout the uncertainty and upheaval of the previous eighteen years. This was a marriage of 'faithful love', of mutual attraction, affection and respect, from which the king seems to have drawn great strength."

In order to maintain stability and peace after ending a civil war that had lasted 32 years, the new Tudor dynasty needed to put an end to the quarrelling Yorkist and Lancastrian families. Elizabeth's sisters, Cecily and Anne of York, and her cousin, Margaret Pole, were married to Lancastrian men who were loyal to Henry. Similar strategies had been used before by Richard III of England, though in that case the Titulus Regius had marred the status of Elizabeth and all of her sisters as illegitimate, and Richard had no intention of making it difficult for the two sides of the conflict to return to factionalism when two were married into one – his actions showed he was more interested in loyalty and eliminating rival claims by wedding them off to the inconsequential. Richard did this directly to Elizabeth's sister, Cecily, by wedding her to Richard Scrope. Elizabeth, therefore, had a motive to see to the successful welfare of her female relatives, but by no means could she foresee whether it would guarantee peace at last.

Further complicating things is that the public image of Henry Tudor, handed down through time only accords with the last years of his reign. Where, when, and how he spent his money is traceable by surviving documents, some written by the king himself and many more having his signature "Henry R" to indicate his oversight of entries, both his personal and the realm's finances, documented in careful detail. Surviving in the British National Archives are letters written by Elizabeth of York and also a records of her privy purse, supplying evidence that the rumour regarding Henry's mistreatment of his wife could be false. Elizabeth was a very pious woman and one of her life passions was charity, one of the three theological virtues of the Catholic Church. She gave away money and alms in very large quantities, to the point she indebted herself on many occasions. She also gave generously to monks and religious orders.

The records state that Elsyng Palace was one of two nurseries for Henry and Elizabeth's children and they are both places where Elizabeth spent much of her time when not at court. Within a year of the Battle of Bosworth, a friend of Henry Tudor, Thomas Lovell, began expanding and improving upon the Elsyng property to make it fit for Elizabeth, her husband, and her children-to-be, completed by the time of the birth of Prince Henry with inner and outer courts and ample places to play for the royal children. This was largely done as a gift, but it was completed in the newer Renaissance style and in time was suitable enough for Henry and Elizabeth's grandchildren and proves it was a much loved refuge for the king and his wife.

Elizabeth received a grand coronation where she was carried on a royal barge down the Thames. Henry VII was as much a builder as his son and granddaughter and Elizabeth had a hand in designing the new Greenwich Palace. The rebuilding at Greenwich commenced in 1498. In 1502, the master mason Robert Vertue was paid for working to a plan described as the "new platt of Greenwich which was devised by the Queen". The Palace was well appointed for large scale entertaining. Records are very clear that Christmas was a raucous and special time for the royal family on the whole, evidenced by many surviving documents depicting a particularly lively court having a marvelous time, with copious amounts of imported wine, great amounts of money spent upon roasted meats, and entertainers. Henry also frequently bought gifts for Elizabeth and their children. The account books, kept by Henry, demonstrate that he spent a great deal of gold on expensive cloth for himself, his wife and his children.

Elizabeth of York did not exercise much political influence as queen due to her strong-minded mother-in-law Lady Margaret Beaufort. Elizabeth was reported to be gentle, kind and generous to her relations, servants and benefactors. One report does state that Henry VII chose to appoint Elizabeth's choice for a vacant bishopric over his mother's choice, showing Henry's affection for, and willingness to listen to, Elizabeth. She seems to have had a love of books, patronising the English printer William Caxton. Elizabeth of York enjoyed music, dancing, and gambling; the last of these was a pastime she shared with her husband. She also kept greyhounds.

As queen, Elizabeth made arrangements for the education of her younger children, including the future Henry VIII. She also accompanied her husband on his diplomatic visit to Calais in 1500 to meet with Philip I of Castile. She corresponded with Queen Isabella I of Castile before their children's marriage.

On 14 November 1501, Elizabeth of York's 15-year-old son Arthur married Catherine of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. The pair were sent to Ludlow Castle, the traditional residence of the Prince of Wales. Arthur died in April 1502. The news of Arthur's death caused Henry VII to break down in grief, as much in fear for his dynasty as in mourning for his son. Elizabeth comforted him, telling him that he was the only child of his mother but had survived to become king, that God had left him with a son and two daughters, and that they were both young enough to have more children. When she returned to her own chambers, however, Elizabeth herself broke down with grief. Her attendants sent for Henry who, in turn, comforted her.

Death and aftermath
In 1502, Elizabeth of York became pregnant once more and spent her confinement period in the Tower of London. Her embroiderer Robynet made her a new rich bed with curtains decorated with clouds and roses. On 2 February 1503, she gave birth to a daughter, Katherine, who died a few days later. Succumbing to a postpartum infection, Elizabeth of York died on 11 February, her 37th birthday. Her family seems to have been devastated by her death and mourned her deeply. According to one biographer, the death of Elizabeth "broke the heart" of her husband and "shattered him." Another account says that Henry Tudor "privily departed to a solitary place and would no man should resort unto him." This is notable considering that, shortly after Elizabeth's death, records show he became deathly ill himself and would not allow anyone except his mother Margaret Beaufort near him, including doctors. For Henry Tudor to show his emotions, let alone any sign of infirmity, was highly unusual and alarming to members of his court. Within a little over two years, King Henry VII had lost his eldest son, his wife, his baby daughter, and found himself having to honour the Treaty of Perpetual Peace by sending his eldest daughter, Margaret, to Scotland.

In 2012, the Vaux Passional, an illuminated manuscript that was once the property of Henry VII, was rediscovered in the National Library of Wales. It depicts the aftermath of Elizabeth's death vividly. Henry VII is shown receiving the book containing the manuscript in mourning robes with a doleful expression on his face. In the background, behind their father, are the late queen's daughters, Mary and Margaret, in black veils. The red head of 11-year-old Prince Henry is shown weeping into the sheets of his mother's empty bed.

Henry VII entertained thoughts of remarriage to renew the alliance with Spain—Joanna, Dowager Queen of Naples (daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples), Joanna, Queen of Castile (daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella), and Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Savoy (sister-in-law of Joanna of Castile), were all considered —but he died a widower in 1509. The specifications that Henry gave to his ambassadors outlining what he wanted in a second wife described Elizabeth. On each anniversary of her death, he decreed that a requiem mass be sung, the bells be tolled, and 100 candles be lit in her honour. Henry also continued to employ her minstrels each New Year.

The Tower of London was abandoned as a royal residence, as evidenced by the lack of records of its being used by the royal family after 1503. Royal births in the reign of Elizabeth's son, Henry VIII, took place in various other palaces.

Henry VII's reputation for miserliness became worse after Elizabeth's death. He was buried with Elizabeth of York under their effigies in his Westminster Abbey chapel. Her tomb was opened in the 19th century and the wood casing of her lead coffin was found to have been removed to create space for the interment of her great-great-grandson James VI and I.

Children

 * Arthur, Prince of Wales (20 September 1486 – 2 April 1502)
 * Margaret, Queen of Scotland (28 November 1489 – 18 October 1541)
 * Henry VIII, King of England (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547)
 * Elizabeth (2 July 1492 – 14 September 1495), buried in St Edward's Chapel, Westminster Abbey
 * Mary, Queen of France (18 March 1496 – 25 June 1533)
 * Edmund, Duke of Somerset (21 February 1499 – 19 June 1500), buried in Westminster Abbey
 * Katherine (2 February 1503 – 10 or 18 February 1503 ), buried in Westminster Abbey

Appearance and legacy
The symbol of the Tudor dynasty is the Tudor rose, which became a royal symbol for England upon Elizabeth's marriage to Henry VII in 1486. Her White Rose of York is most commonly proper to her husband's Red Rose of Lancaster and today, uncrowned, is still the floral emblem of England.

Henry VIII owned a version of her portrait, displayed with a silk curtain, described in his inventory as a "table with the Picture of Quene Elizabeth with a Curten of yellowe & white sarceonet paned togethers". Her portrait may have painted by Meynnart Wewyck. Pietro Torrigiano made bronze effigies of Elizabeth and Henry VII for their monument at Westminster Abbey.

Elizabeth of York was renowned as a great beauty for her time, with regular features, tall in stature, and a fair complexion, inheriting many traits from her father and her mother Elizabeth Woodville, who was considered at one point the most beautiful woman in the British Isles. She inherited her father's height as most women of her generation were considerably smaller than 5 ft.

Film

 * Richard III (1995), played by Kate Steavenson-Payne

Television

 * The Shadow of the Tower (1972), played by Norma West
 * The White Queen (2013), played by Freya Mavor
 * The White Princess (2017), played by Jodie Comer
 * The Spanish Princess (2019), played by Alexandra Moen

Family tree
Elizabeth's father, brother, husband, and son were all kings and two daughters were queens consort.

title: Elizabeth of York