OLD COLONIAL CAPITAL
Long the capital of British India, and founded by an agent for the British East India Company on a lease from Mogul emperor Aurangzeb, Kolkata (spelled Calcutta until recently) was first undercut by the creation of the Suez Canal, which offered a new and shorter shipping route west from India, instead of the Cape Horn route. Delhi replaced the city as India's capital in 1912, and Bangladeshi independence reduced the city to a regional center.
ECONOMYShipping, jute and textiles, chemicals, medicines, paper, footwear, railroad cars, motor vehicles, engineering goods, metal products.Text source:
National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition, 2004
