About Patiala District

Patiala is a city in the Punjab state of India. Patiala district is one of the famous princely cities of erstwhile Punjab. It presents a beautiful banquet of the life style even to a casual visitor to the city. It is the 'City of palaces and museums' is a brilliant spectrum of Rajpoot, Mughal and Punjabi cultures.

It is the administrative headquarters of Patiala District, and was the capital of the premier princely state in the former Punjab Province of British India, headed by the Sidhu dynasty. Patiala is famous for its peg (a reference to Patiala Peg - an unusually large peg of whiskey), pagri (traditional headgear), paranda (tasselled tag for braiding hair) and Jutti (traditional Punjabi footwear).

An erstwhile princely state and capital of PEPSU, it is one of the district head quarters of Punjab. Patiala is home town of many eminent personalities like cricketers Navjot Sidhu, Mohinder Amarnath, Reetinder Sodhi, Bollywood Stars Jimmy Shregill, Om Puri, Punjabi Singers Gurdas Mann & Harbhajan Mann, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal & above all Sq Ldr Rakesh Sharma, first and only Indian till date in space and so on.

Patiala is a centre of education. The city is a consumer goods emporium. Punjabi Jutti (shoes), golden and silver shoes embroidered in several patterns and colours to match dresses. It is also famous for its silver and gold embroidered "naala" (pyjama strings), parandhas (women weave them at the end of their plaits or braids) of varied shapes and designs but uniformly beautiful hand-woven head coverings, Phulkaris which can only be described as embroidered epics.

Geographical Location
It is situated in one of the geographically well defined regions of Punjab known as the Malwa. Malwa comprises the area between the Sutlej and the Ghaggar and is surrounded by Himachal Pradesh in the north-west. Patiala is located at 30.33° N 76.4° E. It has an average elevation of 250 metres (820 feet). Patiala is 26 km to the south-west of Rajpura (located on National Highway 1). Daily bus service is available to Delhi and other major towns in Punjab and other neighbouring states. By Railway network, Patiala is on the branch line to Bhatinda and Firozpur. A route west from Patiala goes through a series of small market towns to Bhatinda.

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