Hyderabad in five minutes: Golconda diamonds to Cyberabad glass
Four centuries, one river, the world's best diamonds, the richest man alive, and a tech reinvention.
You don't need a history degree to get Hyderabad, just these beats.
It started with a river
Hyderabad was founded in 1591 by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah on the banks of the Musi. The Charminar, the city's signature monument, went up right at the start and still anchors the Old City.
The diamond years
Before Hyderabad, the action was at Golconda Fort, 11 km west. Golconda's markets traded the most famous diamonds on earth, the Koh-i-Noor and the Hope Diamond both passed through here.
The richest man alive
Later, under the Nizams of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, Hyderabad became one of the wealthiest princely states in the world. The seventh Nizam was, at one point, considered the richest person on the planet. That money built universities, palaces and a genuinely cosmopolitan culture where Telugu, Urdu and Persian all mixed.
Cyberabad
Hyderabad joined India in 1948. In the 1990s and 2000s it reinvented itself again as a tech hub, nicknamed Cyberabad, home to HITEC City and the campuses of the world's biggest tech firms. Today it's the shared capital of Telangana, old soul and new money in the same skyline.