Aligarh

City in Uttar Pradesh, India, 120 km/75 mi southeast of Delhi; population (2001) 667,700. Industries include agricultural manufacturing and processing, engineering, and textiles. Aligarh Muslim University was founded here in 1875 as the Anglo-Oriental College.

There are ancient Buddhist and Hindu remains, but records of the town date only from 1194, when it was a Rajput stronghold administered by Muslim governors. The old city was named Koil, and was mentioned by Ibn Battuta in 1342; Aligarh, meaning ‘high fort’, was the name attached to the fort built in 1524. It passed from the Moguls to the Marathas, and was taken by the British under Lord Lake in 1803.