Roorkee

Roorkee is a small town in northern India and is a part of the state of Uttaranchal.

Geography

It is about 180 kilometers north of the Indian capital New Delhi and located between the rivers Ganga and Yamuna. Before the creation of Uttaranchal on November 9th 2000, Roorkee was a part of the historic state of Uttar Pradesh.

Importance

Roorkee is best known for University of Roorkee, now Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. It is also the home of government research institutes, Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Irrigation Research Institute (IRI) and the National Institute Of Hydrology (NIH).

The city has produced engineers of the finest quality from the erstwhile University of Roorkee, now known as Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. It also has an army base. One striking feature of this town is the presence of a big canal which flows on a bridge crossing a seasonal river, built by the British and augmented recently.City is really very beautiful.

It is also the place where first locomotive engine in India moved on rails -- locomotive engine named Mary lind which was especially shipped from England. It was used to carry soil which was used for the construction of aqueduct on Ganga canal. This locomotive ran in year 1846, long before the first passenger train in india (bombay-thane).

Facts

Latitude: 29° 51' North

Longitude: 77° 54' East

Altitude: 274 meters

Telephone area code (STD code within India): 01332

Telephone area code (International): +91-1332

Languages spoken: Hindi, English and Punjabi.

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