Tourism in West Bengal

West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous state.^[1] The state capital is Kolkata. The state encompasses two broad natural regions: the Gangetic Plain in the south and the sub-Himalayan and Himalayan area in the north. The tourism in West Bengal is maintained by WBTDCL, a state government owned enterprise.

West Bengal is located on the eastern bottleneck of India stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south. Some of India's most preferred travel destinations like; the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region in the northern extreme of the state, the highest peak of the state Sandakphu (3,636 m or 11,929 ft)^[2] and the Sundarbans mangrove forests in the extreme south.

During the British colonial era from 1700 to 1912, Kolkata was the capital of British India and witnessed a spate of frenzied construction of buildings, largely influenced by the conscious intermingling of Neo-Gothic, Baroque, Neo-Classical, Oriental and Islamic schools of design. Unlike many north Indian cities, whose construction stresses minimalism, the layout of much of the architectural variety in Kolkata owes its origins to European styles and tastes imported by the British and to a much lesser extent, by the Portuguese and French.

Currently Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is the brand ambassador of West Bengal Tourism. The promotional films on West Bengal starring Shah Rukh Khan have been directed by Indian National Award winning filmmaker Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury.^[3][4][5]