Patrika Gate

When Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II founded Jaipur in 1727, he built a fortified wall with eight gates positioned in all four directions—because symmetry matters when you’re a boy-king astronomer obsessed with geometric perfection and planetary alignments.

Nearly three centuries later, the Jaipur Development Authority decided the city needed a ninth gate. Never mind that the original walls are long gone and this one guards nothing but a traffic circle near the airport.

Built in 2016 by the Patrika newspaper group, Patrika Gate sits at Jawahar Circle—locals insist it’s Asia’s largest circular park developed on a highway roundabout, which feels like a very specific superlative but we’ll allow it. The gate’s nine pavilions, each exactly nine feet wide, continue Jai Singh’s obsession with the number nine: his original city was divided into nine sectors representing the nine planets of Vedic astrology.

Hand-painted frescoes cover every surface—temples, forts, palaces, wedding processions, battle scenes, daily life in Rajasthan—a crash course in regional history delivered in saturated pinks, oranges, yellows, and blues that make the city’s famous terracotta pink look downright subtle. The 4,658-foot circular park includes rose gardens, fountains, and pathways, but most visitors come for one thing: photos. Lots of photos. Instagram discovered it, declared it “the most colorful door in India,” and the rest is algorithm history. Still, between the tourist photo shoots, you’ll find locals strolling the gardens at sunset and kids skating past the gate’s pillars—proof that even the most photogenic monuments can still belong to the neighborhood.