Lalbagh Fort, a 17th-century Mughal fort complex, is in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The unfinished fort stands in Old Dhaka, in the neighbourhood of Lalbagh, whose name means “Red Garden.” Its construction began in 1678 when Prince Muhammad Azam Shah, a son of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, served as governor of Bengal. The project was originally known as Fort Aurangabad.
Azam Shah was recalled before the work was complete, and Shaista Khan later oversaw the province. Construction stopped after the death of Shaista Khan’s daughter, Pari Bibi, whose tomb became one of the complex’s central buildings. The fort also includes a mosque, an audience-and-residential building, gardens, water features, and defensive walls.
A common mistake is to treat Lalbagh Fort as a completed imperial citadel like Delhi’s Red Fort. It is better understood as an incomplete Mughal complex and governor’s residence. Dhaka’s changing political importance also mattered: after the Mughal capital shifted to Murshidabad, the fort lost its former prominence.