City Palace
The Jaipur royal family still lives here — around 500 personal servants included.
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Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II broke ground in 1727 after shifting his court from Amber, completing the palace by 1732. It served as Jaipur's ceremonial and administrative seat until 1949, when the kingdom was absorbed into Rajasthan. Today one section operates as the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum; another remains a private royal residence. Few palace museums share a wall with a working household of that scale.
What to look for
- The blending of Mughal and Rajput architectural styles, laid out according to vastushastra principles
- The sequence of courtyards running through the complex — the original outer wall was built by Jai Singh II himself
- The museum galleries run by the MSMS II Museum Trust, still overseen by members of the Jaipur royal family
The complex contains multiple galleries, courtyards, restaurants, and trust offices — give it at least two hours and expect active management presence rather than a mothballed monument.
City Palace is one of 7 sights worth the detour in Jaipur, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Jaipur pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Jaipur
- Hawa MahalThat towering honeycomb wall everyone photographs from the street? It's the back of the palace.
- Jantar MantarA Rajput king built 19 stone instruments here to fix the royal star charts — and the world's largest stone sundial is still the centerpiece.
- Amber FortA hilltop palace where Raja Man Singh built twelve queens' rooms each with a staircase to his chamber — yet the queens were forbidden from ascending it — and engineers cooled a room using wind blown over a water cascade.
- Jal MahalA five-story sandstone hunting lodge sits in the middle of Man Sagar Lake — its lower floors beneath the waterline when the lake is full.
- Jaigarh FortFour hundred metres above Amer, the fort that cast the world's largest cannon on wheels still commands the valley.
- Nahargarh FortBuilt in 1734 as a hilltop retreat, named for the ghost its builders had to appease.