Bangalore historical timeline

Bangalore's history is not a straight progression from fort to technology hub. Its present form comes from neighbouring settlements, changing political control, constructed water systems and a long division between the old city and the cantonment.

Chronology

1. Before 1537 The wider region passed through the rule of the Western Gangas, Cholas and Hoysalas. Their political geography predates the city normally identified with Kempe Gowda.
2. 1537 Kempe Gowda, a local ruler under the Vijayanagara Empire, established a mud fort and market town. The district administration treats this foundation as the beginning of modern Bangalore.
3. 1638 Maratha forces took control of Bangalore. Their rule lasted for almost fifty years before Mughal power reached the city.
4. Late 17th century The Mughals captured Bangalore and sold it to the Wadiyar rulers of Mysore. The city subsequently belonged to the Mysore political sphere.
5. Around 1760 Hyder Ali began the garden that became Lalbagh. Tipu Sultan later enlarged its plant collection, connecting a royal landscape project with the city's later botanical identity.
6. 1791 Tipu Sultan's ornate wooden palace in the old fort area was completed. The surviving building still anchors an important part of the pre-colonial visitor geography.
7. 1799 British victory in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War brought Bangalore under British military control. Administrative control of the old city was returned to the Maharaja of Mysore.
8. 1809 The British moved their cantonment to Bangalore outside the old city. A separate town grew around it under British Indian administration, creating a division that remained legible for generations.
9. 1947 After Indian independence, Bangalore remained the capital of Mysore State. Public-sector manufacturing, aerospace, science and research became central to the city's post-independence economy.
10. 1949 The city and cantonment, long governed as separate urban settlements, merged into one municipal centre. Their different street plans, institutions and architectural traditions did not disappear with the administrative change.
11. 13 July 1951 Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of Vidhana Soudha. Chief Minister Kengal Hanumanthaiah promoted the project as a seat for representative government.
12. 1956 Vidhana Soudha was completed, and the reorganised Mysore State took shape on linguistic lines with Bangalore as its capital. The new legislature building gave the city a powerful post-independence civic landmark.
13. 1 November 1973 Mysore State officially became Karnataka. Bangalore remained the state capital and the centre of its legislature and administration.
14. 2006 The existing Kannada name Bengaluru was declared the city's official name. Bangalore remains common in English and in older institutional names.

What survives, and how

The fort is fragmentary, and the original pete has changed repeatedly, but the old commercial street pattern and the palace area still convey the city's early core. Lalbagh preserves another Mysore-era project in an institution that continues to serve horticulture and public recreation.

The cantonment survives less as one monument than as a pattern of roads, churches, military land, civic buildings and neighbourhoods east of the old city. Vidhana Soudha then added a deliberately modern state symbol to the central landscape. Later research campuses, aerospace institutions and technology corridors extended the city far beyond all three historical centres.

That expansion changes how the historical record should be read on the ground. The pete is not an intact period district, and the cantonment is not a sealed colonial quarter. Both are active parts of a metropolis that has rebuilt around them. The strongest historical visit therefore compares street plans, public institutions and surviving structures instead of searching for one preserved centre.

The city's modern research and technology identity also rests on an earlier post-independence industrial phase. Aerospace, electronics and scientific organisations established large campuses before the later software economy became the dominant international story. Together they explain why Bangalore's twentieth-century history belongs in its visitor narrative rather than appearing only as background to older palaces and gardens.