Srinagar

Srinagar stands in the Alaknanda valley and became the royal capital of Garhwal, a kingdom formed from smaller hill chiefdoms. In the early sixteenth century Ajay Pal united these fortified domains and moved his court here from Chandpur Garhi. The town served as the seat of the rulers who governed the mountain country and its routes to the great shrines of the Himalayas.

In 1803 Gorkhali forces advanced into Kumaon and Garhwal from the east. Raja Pradyumna Shah was defeated and killed in January 1804, and Srinagar subsequently came under Gorkha rule. After the British defeated the Gorkhas in the Anglo-Nepalese War, the town passed into British Garhwal in 1815, while a separate Garhwal state continued under the former royal family farther west.