Chandigarh is one of the most significant urban planning experiments of the 20th century. It is the only one of the numerous urban planning schemes of Le Corbusier, the famous French architect-planner, to have actually been executed.

It is also the site of some of his greatest architectural creations. The city has had far-reaching impact, ushering in a modern idiom of architecture and city planning all over India and has become a symbol of planned urbanism. It is as famous for its landscaping as for its architectural ambience. Most of the buildings are in pure, cubical form, geometrically subdivided with emphasis on proportion, scale and detail.

The new city was needed not only to serve as a capital but also to resettle thousands of refugees who had been uprooted from West Punjab. India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru enthusiastically supported the project and look sustained interest in its execution. When he visited the project on April 2, 1952, he declared: Let this be a new town symbolic of the freedom of India, unfettered by the traditions of the past, an expression of the nation's faith in the future....The new capital of Punjab will be christened as Chandigarh-a name symbolic of the valiant spirit of the Punjabis. Chandigarh is rightly associated with the name of Goddess Chandi -- Shakti, or power.

Chandigarh is the 1st planned modern city of India designed by the French architect Le Corbusier. Chandigarh and the area surrounding it were constituted as a union territory on 1st November, 1966.