Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
The stage for India's 1982 Asian Games opening ceremony, now a $210-million oval that doubles as a 100,000-person concert bowl.
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Built by the Government of India for the 1982 Asian Games — the first held under the Olympic Council of Asia — and rebuilt by German firms Gerkan, Marg and Partners and Schlaich Bergermann Partner for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. At ₹961 crore, it became the most expensive stadium ever constructed in South Asia. The India national football team still plays internationals here.
What to look for
- The canopy roof engineered by Schlaich Bergermann Partner, one of two German firms brought in to redesign the stadium for the 2010 Commonwealth Games
- The athletics infield: this track hosted the 1989 Asian Championships in Athletics and all 2010 Commonwealth Games track-and-field events
- The oval bowl itself, which swells from 60,254 fixed seats to 100,000 for concerts
Central Delhi, inside the Jawaharlal Nehru sports complex — the same precinct that houses the Sports Authority of India headquarters. Check the football calendar before you go.
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Delhi, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Delhi pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Delhi
- Red FortThe ramparts where Jawaharlal Nehru raised India's flag on 15 August 1947 still host that ceremony every Independence Day.
- Qutb MinarSuccessive dynasties handed this tower off across 170 years — Aibak started it in 1199, Firuz Shah Tughlaq capped it with a cupola in 1368.
- Humayun's TombThe red-sandstone ancestor of the Taj Mahal — commissioned by an empress, designed by Persian architects, and finished a century before Agra.
- Jama MasjidShah Jahan built his imperial mosque at the highest point of Shahjahanabad — the Mughal capital — and it was regarded as a symbolic gesture of Mughal power across India.
- Lotus TempleTwenty-seven marble petals, grouped in threes, fold into a single hall where any person of any faith walks in without condition.
- India GateAround 13,300 names carved in stone — soldiers lost across Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and the Afghan frontier.