Nagarkot

Nagarkot, also called Kangra Fort, rises on a hill between the Manjhi and Banganga rivers, below the Dhauladhar range. Built by the Katoch Rajput dynasty, the great fortress contains Hindu and Jain temples whose surviving remains date from around the ninth and tenth centuries. Its walls have attracted many conquerors to the Kangra valley.

Muhammad bin Tughluq captured the fort in 1337, and the Mughals took it in 1620 after a long struggle. When Mughal authority weakened, the Sikh leader Jai Singh Kanhaiya obtained its surrender in 1783. Three years later he ceded it to Raja Sansar Chand in exchange for lands in Punjab. Besieged by Gurkha forces in the early nineteenth century, Sansar Chand sought Ranjit Singh's help; after the Gurkhas were defeated in 1809, the Sikh ruler took possession of the fort.