The historic city Ahmedabad has been declared as a World Heritage City at the 41st session of Unesco’s world heritage committee meet in Karkow in Poland on Saturday. This day (July 8, 2017) will be remembered in history as for the first time an Indian city was declared a world heritage property.

The nomination of Ahmedabad was supported by close to 20 countries, including Turkey, Lebanon, Tunisia, Portugal, Peru, Kazakhistan, Vietnam, Finland, Azerbaijan, Jmaica, Croatia,Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Korea, Croatia, Angolam, Cuba, and the host country of the Unesco session, Poland.

The countries unanimously supported Ahmedabad citing a secular co-existence of Islamic, Hindu and Jain communities along with exemplary architecture of intricately carved wooden havelis dating back hundreds of years. The countries also recognized that the city was a cradle for India’s non-violent freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi.

The walled city has 26 ASI-protected structures, hundreds of ‘pols’ that capture the essence of community living and numerous sites associated with Mahatma Gandhi who lived here from 1915 to 1930.

It will now join the likes of Paris, Cairo and Edinburgh. Of the 287 world heritage cities across the globe, there were only two cities in the Indian subcontinent– Bhaktpur in Nepal and Galle in Sri Lanka. The Unesco tag will add immense value to the city and boost tourism.

Municipal Commissioner Mukesh Kumar said, “We are officially India’s first world heritage city and this is an achievement for the people of the city and the team that worked towards it.”