Gobindgarh Fort

Gobindgarh Fort covers 43 acres in Amritsar, beside the Grand Trunk Road. It began in the 1760s as Bhangian da Qila, a mud fort built by Gujjar Singh of the Bhangi misl, one of the Sikh confederacies that divided Punjab at the time. It later passed to the East India Company and then to the Indian Army, and is now open as a heritage site.

Ranjit Singh took the fort from the weakened Bhangis, led by Gurdit Singh and his mother Mai Sukhan, after a quarrel over the Zamzama cannon and a dispute with the trader Arur Mal; his forces entered through the Ahluwalia gate. He renamed it Gobindgarh after Guru Gobind Singh, and between 1805 and 1809 it was strengthened and enlarged, with help from French officers in his service, to guard the city and the Harmandir Sahib from attack. The Toshakhana, said to have once held the Kohinoor, is now a coin museum. Evening shows include the projection-mapped Whispering Walls (Kanda Boldiyan Ne) and Sher-e-Punjab, a 7D show on the Maharaja's life.