Devgiri Fort, Aurangabad, Maharashtra India

The Devgiri Fort is also known as "Daulatabad fort" emerges dramatically over 600 ft above the Deccan plain. It is one of the world's best preserved forts of medieval times and also one of the few impregnable forts in Maharashtra with excellent architecture. The city was named Daulatabad 'The city of fortune', by Mohammed bin Tughluq, the sultan of Delhi.

The original widespread capital city is now mostly unoccupied and has been reduced to a village. Much of its survival depends on the tourists to the old city and the adjacent fort. The area of the city includes the hill-fortress of Devagiri.

It stands on a conical hill, about 200 meters high. Encircled by thick walls, spiked gates, steep slide ways and a deep trench. The fort has a coiled network of secret, quizzical and subsurface passages.Much of the lower slopes of the hill has been cut away by Yadava dynasty rulers to leave 50 meter vertical sides to improve defences. The fort is a place of extraordinary strength. The only means of access to the summit is by a narrow bridge, with passage for not more than two people abreast, and a long gallery, excavated in the rock, which has for the most part a very gradual upward slope.