Landmark · Delhi

Humayun's Tomb

In 60 seconds

Humayun's Tomb is the garden-tomb of the second Mughal emperor, in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, India — begun in 1569, nine years after his death, and the first great garden-tomb of the dynasty: the building the Taj Mahal descends from. UNESCO-listed in 1993. ASI's own page gives entry at ₹50 for Indian, SAARC and BIMSTEC visitors (₹35 online) and ₹600 for other foreign visitors (₹550 online), under-15s free, open sunrise to 9 p.m. after ASI extended the evening hours; open every day. Allow two hours and spend them inside the walls rather than in front of the dome — the enclosure also holds Isa Khan's octagonal tomb, half a century older than the Mughals in India, and the blue-domed Nila Gumbad beyond the east wall, which almost nobody walks to.

Fees & timings

CHECKED AGAINST OFFICIAL SOURCES · AUGUST 2026

Entry — foreign visitors	₹600 at the counter · ₹550 online
Entry — Indian, SAARC & BIMSTEC	₹50 at the counter · ₹35 online
Children under 15	Free
Video camera	≈ ₹25
Hours	Sunrise to 21:00 — ASI extended the evening hours
Closed	Never
Allow	2 hours, and use the whole enclosure

Spot a change on the ground? Tell us — we fix it in days.

Two live disagreements worth knowing about. ASI credits the building of the tomb to Hamida Banu Begum, Akbar's mother; Delhi Tourism credits Bega Begam, Humayun's senior widow — scholars have argued it for decades and the primary sources are read both ways. And on the fee: ASI's page prints ₹50 at the counter for Indian visitors, while Delhi Tourism's page still shows ₹40. We quote ASI's, because ASI takes the money.

The last emperor was arrested here

In September 1857, with the British retaking Delhi street by street, Bahadur Shah Zafar — eighty-two years old, the last of the line — took refuge in his ancestor's tomb with three of the royal princes. Major William Hodson came for him and he surrendered on a promise of clemency; ASI's own board inside the enclosure records it. The next day Hodson shot the princes at a gate on the road back into the city, which has been called Khooni Darwaza ever since. Zafar was tried, exiled to Rangoon and died there in 1862. Ninety years later the same enclosure held tens of thousands of Partition refugees waiting for trains.

The India Unfolded edit

Five things to look at, that nobody points out

Isa Khan's tomb, fifty years older

Just inside the entrance, before you reach the great gate, is an octagonal tomb standing in its own walled garden: Isa Khan Niyazi, a noble of Sher Shah Suri's court, buried in 1547–48 — a decade before the Mughals came back to India. Most visitors walk straight past it towards the dome.

The blue dome nobody reaches

Outside the east wall stands the Nila Gumbad, its dome still wearing its glazed blue tiles, built by Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan for a servant. A railway line cut it off from the enclosure for decades; it has only recently been brought back into the complex, and it is still the emptiest thing here.

Six-pointed stars

On the spandrels of the west and south gates, and on the tomb's own arched recesses, you will find six-pointed stars. They are a Mughal solar and stellate ornament, used across the period — not a Jewish symbol, which is the reading the internet reliably supplies.

The kiosks were blue too

The small domed chhatris ringing the great dome were originally faced with glazed blue tiles; some have been restored. The building in front of you was once considerably less austere than it now looks, and the restraint people admire in it is partly weathering.

The grave is not the cenotaph

The marble cenotaph in the high central chamber is a marker. ASI's own description is plain about it: the grave proper lies in the cell complex below, reached by a passage on the south. The Taj repeats the arrangement seventy years later — this is where it starts.

More in Delhi

The full Delhi city guide →What to eat in Delhi — the free Food Guide →