Smart city
Witness a city being built
Open landscapes, perfectly straight boulevards, the Canal Front recreation zone and the ABCD Building's Experience Zone. Construction is the attraction.
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Dholera · Gujarat · India
Where India's future city is rising — and an ancient one still stands nearby
Dholera is India's first greenfield smart city, a 920 km² canvas of wide roads, open skies and a city being built from scratch. Twenty minutes away, the 4,500-year-old planned port of Lothal waits in the same golden earth.
~45 min
From Ahmedabad via NE-8 expressway
920 km²
Area of the Dholera SIR
4,500 yrs
Age of nearby Lothal's dockyard
1st
Greenfield smart city in India
The idea
Not a resort. A front-row seat to history being made.
Dholera is not a classic leisure destination — there are no packed beaches or temple circuits yet. What it offers instead is something rarer: the chance to walk the empty avenues of a future city, and to stand in the dockyard of one of the world's oldest planned cities on the same day.
Ancient + modern
Ancient Lothal, 20 minutes away
An Indus Valley dockyard and museum — the best tourism asset in the region — paired with the smart city for an unmissable contrast.
Visit Lothal →
Beyond the city
Nature on the doorstep
Blackbuck at Velavadar, flamingos at Nalsarovar, and the quiet coast of the Gulf of Khambhat — all within a comfortable day's drive.
See the wild side →
The synergy
Ancient planned city meets modern planned city
Around 4,500 years ago, the Harappans laid out Lothal on a grid with a dockyard, a bead factory and a sophisticated drainage system. Today, Dholera is being planned with the same obsession over order — wide roads, utility corridors and a smart-city backbone.
Seeing the two together is the single best reason to visit the region. It turns a construction site into a meditation on how humans have always dreamed of cities.
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Connectivity
The expressway changed everything
The Ahmedabad–Dholera Expressway (NE-8, ~109 km) is open and makes Dholera a realistic day trip — roughly 45 minutes from Ahmedabad. The Dholera International Airport is under advanced construction, with trial activity underway and operations targeted in the coming months.
- By car: ~45 min from Ahmedabad on the NE-8
- By air: Dholera International Airport (opening soon)
- By rail: nearest stations at Dholi & Bhavnagar
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An honest word before you go
Dholera is a work in progress. Tourist infrastructure is still developing — hotels, restaurants and public access to many industrial zones are limited. Plan your base in Ahmedabad or nearby towns, carry food and water, and treat construction zones with care.
What you will see
Wide empty roads, the Canal Front, the ABCD Building, the scale of the SIR, and Lothal's ruins.
What you won't
Ready-made hotels, beach activities, or entry to most industrial sites like the Tata semiconductor plant.
Plan for
A day trip from Ahmedabad, or a combined itinerary with Lothal, Velavadar or Nalsarovar.
Plan your trip
Start with a half-day, end with a story
From a quick smart-city loop to a weekend with blackbuck and flamingos — here are ready-made routes that work today.
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