West Bengal
Kolkata's name likely comes from "Kalikata," one of three villages the British East India Company bought in 1690 to found the city, itself possibly named after the goddess Kali. It served as the capital of British India until 1911, when the British moved the capital to Delhi partly to distance themselves from Bengal's growing nationalist movement. Kolkata was home to Rabindranath Tagore, Asia's first Nobel laureate, and to Subhas Chandra Bose, and remains, by its own reputation, the intellectual and cultural heart of Bengal.