Grand Trunk Road

Not to be confused with Grand Funk Railroad.
Grand Trunk Road
Uttarapath, Sadak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sadak, Long Walk[a]
Route information
Length3,655 km[2] (2,271 mi)
StatusCurrently functional
Existedbefore 322 BCE–present
HistoryMauryan, Sur, Mughal and British Empires
Time period16th century–present
Cultural significanceHistory of the Indian subcontinent and South Asian history
Known forTrading
Major junctions
East endTeknaf, Bangladesh
West endKabul, Afghanistan
Location
Major citiesCox's Bazar, Chittagong, Feni, Dhaka, Rajshahi, Kolkata, Varanasi, Kanpur, Agra, Aligarh, Delhi, Sonipat, Panipat, Karnal, Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Jalalabad, Kabul
Route of the Grand Trunk Road

The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath, Sarak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sarak, and Long Walk)[1] is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads. For at least 2,500 years[3] it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. It runs roughly 3,655 km (2,271 mi)[2] from Teknaf, Bangladesh on the border with Myanmar[4][5] west to Kabul, Afghanistan, passing through Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh, Kolkata, Kanpur, Agra, Aligarh, Delhi, Amritsar in India, and Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Peshawar in Pakistan.[6][1]

The highway was built along an ancient route called Uttarapatha in the 3rd century BCE,[7] extending it from the mouth of the Ganges to the north-western frontier of India. Further improvements to this road were made under Ashoka.[citation needed] The old route was re-aligned by Sher Shah Suri to Sonargaon and Rohtas.[7][8] The Afghan end of the road was rebuilt under Mahmud Shah Durrani.[9][7] The road was considerably rebuilt in the British period between 1833 and 1860.[10]

Over the centuries, the road acted as one of the major trade routes in the region and facilitated both travel and postal communication. The Grand Trunk Road is still used for transportation in the present-day Indian subcontinent, where parts of the road have been widened and included in the national highway system.[11]

The road coincides with the current N1, Feni (Chittagong to Dhaka), N4 & N405 (Dhaka to Sirajganj), N507 (Sirajganj to Natore) and N6 (Natore to Rajshahi towards Purnea in India; NH 12 (Purnea to Bakkhali), NH 27 (Purnea to Patna), NH 19 (Kolkata to Agra), NH 44 (Agra to Jalandhar via New Delhi, Panipat, Karnal, Ambala and Ludhiana) and NH 3 (Jalandhar to Attari, Amritsar in India towards Lahore in Pakistan) via Wagah; N-5 (Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Lalamusa, Kharian, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Khyber Pass towards Jalalabad in Afghanistan) in Pakistan and AH1 (Torkham-Jalalabad to Kabul) to Ghazni in Afghanistan.

  1. ^ a b c "Sites along the Uttarapath, Badshahi Sadak, Sadak-e-Azam, Grand Trunk Road". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
  2. ^ a b The Atlantic: "India's Grand Trunk Road"
  3. ^ UNESCO, Caravanserais along the Grand Trunk Road in Pakistan
  4. ^ Steel, Tim (1 January 2015). "A road to empires". Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  5. ^ Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey (15 September 2015). "Cuisine along G T Road". The Times of India. Calcutta. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  6. ^ Khanna, Parag. "How to Redraw the World Map". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  7. ^ a b c Vadime Elisseeff, p. 159-162, The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce
  8. ^ Farooqui Salma Ahmed, p. 234, A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century
  9. ^ K. M. Sarkar (1927). The Grand Trunk Road in the Punjab: 1849-1886. Atlantic Publishers & Distri. pp. 2–. GGKEY:GQWKH1K79D6.
  10. ^ David Arnold (historian); Science, technology, and medicine in colonial India (New Cambr hist India v.III.5) Cambridge University Press, 2000, 234 pages p. 106
  11. ^ Singh, Raghubir (1995). The Grand Trunk Road: A Passage Through India (First ed.). Aperture Books. ISBN 9780893816445.


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