Where to Stay in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh

What is Jaunpur known for?

Atala Masjid, Jama Masjid and Jhanjhari Masjid stand from the years when Jaunpur ruled itself as an independent sultanate, and the fort and the medieval bridge belong to the same long chapter. Later work is Tughliq and Mughal. The city sits in Purvanchal, a municipal board and the seat of Jaunpur district, about 228 km southeast of Lucknow.

What are the main landmarks in Jaunpur?

Three mosques carry the town's name. Atala Masjid, Jama Masjid and Jhanjhari Masjid all date from the Sharqi period, when the town's builders were working for its own court rather than a distant one. A medieval fort and a bridge complete the set.

Structures from the Tughliq and Mughal eras stand among them, so a walk through Jaunpur crosses several centuries of work without leaving the older streets.

What is the history of Jaunpur?

The town begins with a name. Feroz Shah Tughlaq founded Jaunpur in 1359 and named it in memory of his cousin, Jaun, so the place carried a family memory before it carried a court. That court arrived soon enough.

Under the Sharqi Dynasty the town governed itself as an independent sultanate, and the buildings raised in those years account for most of what still stands from the medieval centuries. Jaun's name has outlasted every ruler who used it. The sultanate's independence ended, but the Atala Masjid, the Jama Masjid and Jhanjhari Masjid remained as the record of it.

Later rule left lighter marks. A few structures survive from the Tughliq and Mughal eras, added to a town whose shape had already been fixed by the Sharqi builders and their mosques. The fort and the bridge held the crossing.

Administration outlived the sultanate: Jaunpur became a municipal board and the seat of Jaunpur district, one town among many in the Purvanchal country of Uttar Pradesh, with Lucknow about 228 km to the northwest. Purvanchal has kept the town in its own orbit rather than the capital's. The mosques kept their names.

Where is Jaunpur?

Jaunpur lies in Purvanchal. The town stands in Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh, about 228 km southeast of Lucknow, and the medieval bridge still carries the crossing. Purvanchal describes the country around it.

Jaunpur resembles the rest of that area more than it resembles the state capital, and the district takes both its name and its administrative centre from the town.

What is the climate of Jaunpur?

Heat runs the year here. Jaunpur sits in the subtropical band north of the equator, inland in Purvanchal, so the warm season is long and the short cool months are the easier time to walk between the mosques. Winter is the walking season.

Anyone planning a circuit of Atala Masjid, the fort and the bridge should take the cooler months, when the middle of the day does not decide the itinerary.

How do you get to Jaunpur?

Roads bring most people in. Lucknow, the state capital, lies about 228 km northwest, and the run southeast from it crosses Purvanchal to reach Jaunpur and its district seat. Jaunpur district roads converge on the town.

Arrivals from elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh come through the same country, and the compact old quarter means the mosques are reached on foot once the road journey ends.