Vijayawada

When Andhra Pradesh lost Hyderabad to the new state of Telangana in 2014, it needed a capital. Vijayawada—already the state's largest city and commercial hub—became the de facto center of power while the planned capital Amaravati was being built on the Krishna River floodplain nearby. A decade later, Amaravati remains largely unbuilt, and Vijayawada continues absorbing the functions that were supposed to move.

The city earned the nickname 'Bezawada' and sits at the head of the Krishna River delta, where the river passes through a gap in the Indrakeeladri Hills. This geographic bottleneck—controlling water flow into one of India's most productive agricultural deltas—has made the site strategically important since at least the 3rd century BCE, when Buddhist monks carved cave temples into the hillside. The Kanaka Durga temple atop Indrakeeladri Hill draws millions of pilgrims during the Dasara festival.

Vijayawada's economy reflects its transit function. The railway junction is one of the busiest in India, connecting Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. Commercial activity centers on the Krishna River's agricultural output: rice, tobacco, and mangoes from the surrounding delta. With roughly 875,000 in the city proper and over a million in the metro area, Vijayawada is growing rapidly as it absorbs displaced state capital functions, government employees, and the construction activity associated with Amaravati.

The Amaravati saga illustrates how founder effects in state formation create path dependencies. Vijayawada's existing infrastructure, population, and commercial networks make it the gravitational center regardless of where planners draw the capital on a map. The planned city struggles because building from scratch requires overcoming the inertia of an established urban ecosystem—the same reason transplanted capitals from Brasília to Naypyidaw remain functionally dependent on the cities they were meant to replace.