Bhopal (Hindi: भोपाल); is the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of Bhopal District and Bhopal Division. The city was the capital of the former Bhopal State. Bhopal is also known as the Lake City (or City of Lakes) for its various natural as well as artificial lakes and is one of the greenest cities in India.

The city attracted international attention after the Bhopal disaster, when a Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide manufacturing plant leaked a mixture of deadly gases including methyl isocyanate on the night of 2/3 December 1984, leading to one of the worst industrial disasters in history and a loss of thousands of lives. Many more were rendered sick and have been facing chronic health problems such as psychological and neurological disabilities, blindness, skin, vision and breathing disorders and the children, whose parents or even grandparents (i.e. second generation) were exposed to the gas, still suffer from serious birth defects.The soil and ground water near the factory site, has been contaminated by the toxic wastes and other chemicals still leaking from the factory. The Indian government, however, maintains that no such pollution has taken place or that any such toxins are even present at the site.Since then, Bhopal has been a center of protests and campaigns which have been joined by millions from across the globe.

A B-1 class city, Bhopal is an important economic, industrial, educational and political center of the State as well as Central India and houses various institutions and installations of state as well as some of national importance. Some of them include ISRO's Master Control Facility which is the second installation of its kind in the country (the first being at Hassan), an youngest Laboratory of CSIR i.e. the Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute (AMPRI), Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research(IISER Bhopal), School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, Indian Institute of Forest Management& The Oldest & top Engineering college in bhopal RKDF[http//:www.rkdf.net],Oriental,LNCT,UIT,TIT, and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal expected to get completed soon. As an urban agglomeration Bhopal is the third largest city of Madhya Pradesh after Jabalpur and Indore.

History

Raja Bhoj The famous Raja Bhoj of Gujjar Parmar king Bhoja (1000–1055 A.D.), of Dhar (Dharanagri) was a highly learned and a wise ruler who ruled over a vast empire. He built the city of Bhopal the capital of the present State of Madhya Pradesh.

Bhopal was originally known as Bhojpal after Bhoj and the dam ('pal') upper lake was constructed by him to form the lakes city. Shiv temple, 24 k.ms. from Bhopal was also built by King Bhoj about a millennium ago, The Temple is the biggest Shivling called to be Bhojeshwar Temple, Bhojpur in India.

Nawab Faiz Muhammed Khan 1742/1777, moved the capital from Islamnagar to Bhupal. It's only after that British pronounced Bhupal as Bhopal as evident, that Railway tickets were printed as Bhupal in Hindi and Bhopal in English. The name of Railway Station was also in the same name and style as Bhupal in Hindi and Bhopal in English respectively. Barkatullah University was originally Bhopal University.

An Afghan soldier of the Orakzai tribe called Dost Mohammad Khan (not to be confused with the later Afghan King carrying the same name) laid out the present city at the same site following the death of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707. He brought with himself the Islamic influence on the culture and architecture of Bhopal, the ruins of which can be found at Islam Nagar. Bhopal was the second largest Muslim state in pre-independence India. [14] Between 1819 and 1926, it was ruled by four women – Begums – unique in the royalty of those days. Qudsia Begum was the first woman ruler, who was succeeded by her only daughter Sikandar Begum, who in turn was succeeded by her only daughter, Shahjehan Begum. Sultan Jahan Begum was the last women ruler, who after 25 years of rule, abdicated in favour of her son, Hamidullah Khan. The succession of ‘Begums’ gave the city such innovations as waterworks, railways and a postal system. Several monuments still stand in the city as reminders of this glorious period in its history. A municipality was constituted in 1907.

It was one of the last princely states to sign the 'Instrument of Accession' 1947. Though India achieved Independence in August 1947, the ruler of Bhopal acceded to India only on 1 May 1949. Sindhi refugees from Pakistan were accommodated in West Bhopal Cities, Bairagarh Sub-Area (Sant Hirdaram nagar), a western suburb of Bhopal. According to the States Reorganization Act of 1956, Bhopal state was integrated into the state of Madhya Pradesh, and Bhopal was declared as its capital. The population of the city rose rapidly thereafter.