Area guides / Punjab / Lahore
Area guide
Lahore
Mughal grandeur, walled-city food, and spring festivals
Region
Punjab
When to go
October to March for comfortable city walking
Getting there
Lahore is reached by air or the M2 motorway. The Walled City, forts, and gardens are spread across the old core, easily linked by car.
Spots
3 key places
Overview
About Lahore
Punjab's cultural capital wears its Mughal heart on its sleeve, the Lahore Fort and Badshahi Mosque, the jewel-tiled Wazir Khan Mosque, and the Shalimar Gardens, wrapped in the food and festivals of the old Walled City.
Lahore is reached by air or the M2 motorway. The Walled City, forts, and gardens are spread across the old core, easily linked by car.
The Walled City
Enter through Delhi Gate and walk the restored Shahi Guzargah past Wazir Khan Mosque, the old city is best on foot, ideally with a local guide and an appetite.
Festival season
Spring brings Basant's kites and Mela Chiraghan's lamps near Shalimar, vivid, crowded, and deeply Lahori. Confirm current dates and status before planning around them.
Top sights in Lahore
Region guide →
Festivals & Events
All events →
Field Guides
All places →
Lahore Fort & Shalamar Gardens
The Lahore Fort (Shahi Qila) and the Shalamar Gardens are a joint UNESCO World Heritage Site and the twin jewels of Mughal Lahore. The fort is a walled citadel rebuilt in 1566 by Akbar and elaborated by Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb, a layered palace-city of audience halls, marble pavilions, and the dazzling Sheesh Mahal (Palace of Mirrors). Seven kilometres away, the Shalamar Gardens, laid out by Shah Jahan in 1641, are a perfect surviving example of the Mughal charbagh: three descending terraces of fountains, water channels, and pavilions.
Badshahi Mosque
The Badshahi Mosque is the grand Mughal statement of Lahore, a vast composition of red Mughal sandstone and white marble built in 1673 by the emperor Aurangzeb, and for over 300 years the largest mosque in the world. Its courtyard alone holds tens of thousands of worshippers, and its silhouette of three marble domes and four soaring minarets, facing the Lahore Fort across the Hazuri Bagh, is the defining image of the old city. It remains an active mosque and the spiritual and architectural heart of the Walled City.
Wazir Khan Mosque
The Wazir Khan Mosque is the most beautiful interior in the Walled City of Lahore, a 1634 Mughal mosque famous above all for its kashi-kari, the intricate glazed-tile mosaic and fresco work that covers almost every surface in cobalt, turquoise, ochre, and green. Built during Shah Jahan's reign by the governor Hakim Ilmuddin Ansari (titled Wazir Khan), it sits deep in the old city near the Delhi Gate, its courtyard and prayer hall a riot of floral and calligraphic decoration. It is widely regarded as the finest tile-work mosque of the Mughal era.
Where to stay
All stays →GreenPak stays in this area are listed on the region guide.