The Taj Mahal (Crown of the Palace), is an ivory-white marble mausoleum in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India.
It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan(1628–1658) to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. The tomb is the centrepiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre) complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall.
The Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for being “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage
