Ayodhya

Ayodhya sits in the Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh, on the right bank of the Sarayu river, about 135 km east of Lucknow. The old city is small (a population of roughly 55,000) and dense, organised around the elevated citadel of Ramkot and the ghats of the Sarayu. Walking the principal sites takes a single full day; the longer pilgrim parikramas extend to 28 km.

Since the Pran Pratishtha on 22 January 2024 and the formal completion of the Ram Mandir complex on 25 November 2025, Ayodhya has become one of the most visited pilgrimage cities in the world. The temple receives 1 to 2 lakh devotees daily, and the district saw 16 crore visitors in 2024, a thirty-fold rise from 2020. The new Maharshi Valmiki International Airport and the rebuilt Ayodhya Dham Junction railway station, both opened in late 2023, have transformed access.

Behind the modern revival is a city of unbroken antiquity. Mentioned by name in the Atharvaveda, described in the opening chapters of the Valmiki Ramayana as a city "made by the gods, prosperous as heaven itself", capital of the Ikshvaku line and of all subsequent Surya dynasty kings, Ayodhya has been continuously inhabited and continuously sacred for thousands of years.