Karnataka

Bengaluru

Bengaluru takes its popular name from "benda kaalu ooru", "town of boiled beans", after a legend of a lost Hoysala king fed beans by an old woman near here. The city itself was formally founded in 1537 by chieftain Kempe Gowda I, whose mud fort and watchtowers still mark its old boundaries centuries later. Under British rule it earned the nickname "Pensioner's Paradise" for its mild climate and gardens, before an entirely different reputation arrived: India's Silicon Valley, home to Infosys, Wipro and the country's tech boom. Vijayanagara and Wodeyar-era temples still stand quietly among the glass office towers that followed them.