The Lahore Fort — Shahi Qila, or the “Royal Fort” — is a citadel at the northern end of Lahore’s Walled City. Spread over more than 20 hectares, it contains 21 notable monuments. The foundations of the present fort were laid in 1566, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar, and it was almost entirely rebuilt in the 17th century, when the Mughal Empire was at its zenith.
Its most admired buildings come from the reign of Shah Jahan, whose additions are characterised by white marble with inlaid Persianate floral designs: the Naulakha Pavilion, built in 1633, the Sheesh Mahal — the “Palace of Mirrors” — and the white marble Moti Masjid. From the reign of Jahangir comes the great Picture Wall, about 440 metres long, decorated with glazed tile, faience mosaics and frescoes. The Alamgiri Gate, built by Aurangzeb in 1674, faces the Badshahi Mosque across Hazuri Bagh.
After the fall of the Mughal Empire, the fort became the residence of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh Empire, whose court added several pavilions. It then passed to the East India Company in 1849, after the Battle of Gujrat. In 1981, the fort was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, together with the Shalimar Gardens, for its outstanding repertoire of Mughal monuments from the empire’s artistic and aesthetic zenith.
Sources
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahore_Fort (Wikipedia, “Lahore Fort”, accessed 7 November 2026).
See also: the profiles of Lahore-based singer Maanu and Lahore-based YouTuber Ducky Bhai on Wikipedia Pakistan.
