Agra was the Mughal capital from 1556 to 1648, and the dynasty left its whole arc here in stone — Akbar's sandstone experiments, Jahangir's Persian marble inlay, Shah Jahan's white perfection, and the fort where his son imprisoned him.
Akbar designed his own mausoleum (begun 1605, finished 1613 by Jahangir); a five-tiered sandstone pyramid with four marble minarets — the first in Mughal architecture. Open sunrise–sunset. Blackbuck and langurs roam the 119-acre charbagh.
The 1623 tomb of Akbar's Rajput wife and Jahangir's mother, built on a Lodi-era baradari platform. Almost empty of visitors, it shows Hindu-Islamic fusion — carved sandstone brackets, chhatris — a kilometre from Akbar's tomb.
The 1635 tomb of Afzal Khan Shirazi, Shah Jahan's Persian prime minister and poet — the only building in India faced entirely in glazed tilework (chini). Much of the turquoise and cobalt faience has fallen, but the north façade still holds colour.
Laid out by Babur in 1528, this is the oldest surviving Mughal garden in India and the prototype for every charbagh that followed, including the Taj's. Babur's body rested here before being carried to Kabul. Terraced water channels and stone chutes survive.
Akbar's capital from 1571 to 1585, abandoned after 14 years — probably over water supply. The Diwan-i-Khas has a single carved central pillar where Akbar sat above debating theologians of four religions. 40 km west; open sunrise–sunset.
The 54-metre Buland Darwaza was added in 1575 to mark Akbar's Gujarat conquest — the tallest gateway in the world. Inside, the 1581 marble dargah of Sufi saint Salim Chishti, whose blessing Akbar credited for the birth of his heir Jahangir.
A 21-metre tower studded with stone elephant tusks, raised over the grave of Akbar's favourite elephant. Nearby are the caravanserai, the mint and the waterworks that failed the city — the infrastructure behind the abandoned capital.
In use since the 1620s and the oldest European cemetery in northern India. Armenian merchant graves, Jesuit missionaries from Akbar's court, and the tomb of John Mildenhall, Elizabeth I's envoy who died at Agra in 1614.
Built in 1648 by Jahanara Begum, Shah Jahan's eldest daughter — one of the few major Mughal buildings commissioned by a woman. Its zigzag sandstone-and-marble domes face the fort. The lanes of Kinari Bazaar behind it follow the 17th-century street plan.
The old Muslim quarter where Mughal court cooking survives as street food — bedai and jalebi at dawn stalls, mutton korma, and Panchhi petha, the ash-gourd sweet said to have been developed for Shah Jahan's builders.
Housed in the Jal Mahal on the western side of the Taj gardens. Holds the original 1652 building drawings, Mughal celadon plates said to crack on contact with poison, and two 17th-century ivory portraits of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal.
Tajganj was built in the 1630s to house the Taj's craftsmen, and families there still cut and inlay marble by the same parchin kari method — semi-precious stone ground on a bow lathe and set with a lac adhesive.