Patan, Gujarat

Patan is a city in Gujarat state of western India. It is the administrative seat of the District of the same name.

Known in the Middle Ages as Anhilwara, Patan served as the capital of the Hindu kingdom of Gujarat until the Muslim conquest. Historian Tertius Chandler estimates that Anhilwara was the tenth-largest city in the world in the year 1000, with a population of approximately 100,000. Mohammed of Ghazni's general (and later Sultan of Delhi) Qutbuddin Aibak sacked the city between 1200 and 1210, and it was destroyed in 1298. After the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate at the end of the 14th century Gujarat became an independent Sultanate, and Sultan Ahmed Shah moved the capital to Ahmedabad. The modern town of Patan later sprung up near the ruins of Anhilwara. It contains many Jain temples.

References

Chandler, Tertius. 1987. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census. St. David's University Press.