Taj Mahal, Agra

The Taj Mahal is Shah Jahan's marble mausoleum for Mumtaz Mahal and India's best-known monument. Here are its official timings, Friday closure, ticket prices for every visitor category and the rules at the gate.

The Taj Mahal is the mausoleum that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built on the right bank of the Yamuna for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. She died in 1631 at Burhanpur while giving birth to their fourteenth child. Her remains were brought to Agra in December 1631, and work on the tomb began soon after. The complex took about two decades to finish.

Visitors enter the forecourt through the Western or Eastern gate, then pass through the red sandstone Great Gate (Darwaza-i-Rauza) to see the tomb framed at the end of a long garden. The charbagh garden is divided by water channels, with a raised marble pool in the centre. The mausoleum stands on a square marble plinth with four minarets and is flanked by a red sandstone mosque on the west and its mirror-image jawab on the east.

Its surfaces are decorated with Quranic calligraphy in black marble, carved flower panels and pietra dura inlay of semi-precious stones. Inside, a carved marble screen surrounds the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan; the actual graves are in a crypt below. Entering the main mausoleum needs an extra Rs 200 ticket, and photography is not allowed inside it. The Taj Mahal was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.

Polluting vehicles are not allowed within 500 m, so visitors park at Shilpgram or Amrood ka Teela and take battery buses to the gates. The monument is closed every Friday. Night viewing is offered around the full moon, except on Fridays and during Ramzan.