Zero Mile Stone, Nagpur: History & the “Center of India” Claim
मराठीत वाचा: झिरो माईल स्टोन नागपूर — खरा इतिहास आणि ‘भारताचे केंद्र’ दावा →
Nagpur is the center of India. Say it to anyone from the city and they’ll nod like it’s settled fact — proof usually offered in the same breath as the Zero Mile Stone, a modest sandstone pillar standing quietly on a traffic island a short walk from the railway station. It’s one of the most photographed, least understood monuments in the city. Most visitors know it as “that pillar with the four horses.” Almost nobody — including plenty of Nagpurkars — could tell you why it’s actually there, who built it, or whether that famous “center of India” claim is even true. Here’s the real story.
What the Zero Mile Stone Actually Is
Strip away the folklore and the Zero Mile Stone is a hexagonal sandstone pillar roughly 6.5 metres tall, each face about a metre wide, standing on a circular base about 7.9 metres across. Right beside it sits a smaller, separate stone — the actual technical marker, called a GTS Standard Bench Mark. GTS stands for the Great Trigonometrical Survey, the colonial-era project that mapped and measured British India with a level of precision that, remarkably, still underpins Indian cartography today.
The four sandstone horses rearing up around the base — the part almost everyone photographs — were added later, as a decorative addition to the original survey marker. They aren’t part of the stone’s original purpose and have nothing to do with why the site was chosen; they’ve simply become the monument’s most recognisable feature over time. The tall stone pillar standing behind them, plain by comparison, is the part that actually matters historically — that pillar is the Zero Mile Stone.
The base carries mileage markings to nearby towns — Raipur among them, at roughly 174 miles — a small detail that hints at the stone’s real, unglamorous original job: helping surveyors and travellers measure distance across British-era Central India.
Why It Was Built: A Survey Marker, Not a Monument to “The Center”
This is the part almost every retelling gets backwards. The Zero Mile Stone was not built to declare Nagpur the center of India. It was built as a reference point for the Great Trigonometrical Survey — the decades-long British effort to triangulate and map the subcontinent with scientific precision, using fixed points (temples, forts, and purpose-built pillars like this one) to measure distances and elevations accurately across the country.
The GTS itself is a genuinely remarkable piece of history. It was begun in 1802 by William Lambton, and carried forward after his death by George Everest (yes, that Everest), then by Andrew Scott Waugh and James Walker, as the survey’s “Great Arc” extended the length of India. The small bench-mark stone standing next to Nagpur’s pillar carries the date 1907 — placing it in a later phase of GTS work, rather than something Lambton or Everest personally planted here. It’s a genuine piece of that larger scientific project, just not from its most famous chapter.
In short: the stone was surveying infrastructure. The “center of India” story is something that got attached to it afterward — which brings us to the question everyone actually wants answered.
Is Nagpur Really the Geographical Center of India?
Here’s the honest answer: it’s disputed, and probably more civic pride than settled geography.
The claim is repeated as flat fact all over the city — Nagpur’s own district government website states it outright. But nothing in the historical or geodetic record we could find actually proves it. In fact, Nagpur isn’t even the only claimant: two villages in Madhya Pradesh, Karaundi and Barsali, separately claim the same title, each with their own supporting logic.
That doesn’t make the Zero Mile Stone meaningless — quite the opposite. It’s a genuine 100+ year old piece of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, one of the most ambitious mapping projects in history, sitting quietly in the middle of a modern Indian city. The “center of India” story is a myth built on top of a real, historically significant marker — and the true story is more interesting than the myth, not less.
Who Looks After It Today
Like a lot of understated heritage markers, the Zero Mile Stone has spent long stretches quietly neglected. In 2008, The Times of India stepped in and took responsibility for maintaining the monument for five years — a rare instance of a media organisation directly funding upkeep of a civic landmark. Its maintenance status beyond that isn’t something we could independently confirm, and honestly, that ambiguity is itself part of the story: this is a nationally significant survey marker that doesn’t always get treated like one.
It sits alongside two of Nagpur’s other real heritage stories worth knowing — the newly built Town Hall named after Raghuji Bhosale, the king who founded the city, and the 145-year-old Marbat & Tanha Pola tradition (Marathi) found nowhere else in India.
Visiting the Zero Mile Stone
- Where: near the Gowari Shahid Memorial, on the route toward the RBI building, central Nagpur.
- Distance from Nagpur Railway Station: roughly 2 km — a 5-10 minute auto or cab ride.
- Entry: free, no pass or booking required.
- Coordinates: 21°08′59″N 79°04′50″E.
- Best for: a quick, free stop if you’re already near the station or Sitabuldi — pair it with a walk up Sitabuldi Fort or a visit to the nearby markets to make an afternoon of it.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s a widely repeated local claim, but it’s disputed — two villages in Madhya Pradesh (Karaundi and Barsali) make the same claim, and no independent geodetic source confirms Nagpur’s version definitively.
The stone is associated with the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India; the adjoining benchmark stone carries the date 1907.
The horses were added later as a decorative addition to the original survey pillar — they aren’t part of its original purpose and aren’t connected to why the site was chosen.
No — it’s a free, publicly accessible monument with no pass or booking required.
About 2 km, roughly a 5-10 minute auto or cab ride.
Great Trigonometrical Survey — the colonial-era project that mapped British India using a network of fixed triangulation and benchmark points, of which this stone is one.
