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How did Hyderabad’s localities and landmarks get their names?



1. *Albert Abid* was a Jewish valet of the Nizam, who owned a shop, the surrounding area, now the main shopping area, was named *Abids* after him.

2. *Afzalgunj* gets it's name from the 5th Nizam Afzal Ud Daulah, who gifted the land to grain merchants here.
 Now a bustling market place, it is home to State Central Library which has around 17,000 manuscripts dating back to ancient, medieval times.

3. *Alwal* gets it's name from the Alwars (Vaishnavite Devotees) who settled down here, most of them were devoteess of Shri Venkateswara. 
The place is famous for it's old (150+ years old) Venkateswara Temple & noted director Shyam Benegal was a resident of this area.

4. *Ameerpet* gets it's name from Amir Ali, a jagirdar of the Nizam who was gifted the land here. 
The Nizamia Observatory here was the 3rd such to be setup in India.

5. *Barkas* in the Old City area gets it's name from the fact that it housed military barracks of the Nizam. 
This place was where the Arab soldiers and bodyguards of the Nizam used to stay, even now their descendants the Chaush, make up a bulk of the population here.

6. *Basheerbagh* located in the heart of Hyderabad, Bashir-ud-DauIa Bahadur, a senior noble belonging to the Paigah aristocracy. The Paigah palace is located here too.

7. *Begum Bazar* gets it's name from Humda Begum, wife of Nizam Ali Khan Nizamul Mulk who gifted the land here to merchants for their trading activities. 
It has the 2nd largest fish market in Hyderabad, and the first Ganesh Puja pandal in the entire Nizam State was set up here.

8. *Begumpet* gets it's name from Basheer Ul-Unnisaa Begum, the daughter of the 6th Nizam who got this land as part of her wedding dowry.

9. *Bowenpally* or Boinpally is one of the 3 villages that made up Secunderabad, the other two being Alwal and Tirumalgerry. 
It was named as Bhuvanapalli after Trailokya Bhuvaneswara,an ancient Chalukya ruler.

10. *Chikkadapally* gets it's name from the word Chikkad meaning mud, owing to the fact that mud often got deposited here from drain nalas. 

11. *Domalguda*, gets it's name from the fact that two wrestlers( *Do Malla*) lived here, the Ramakrishna Math is located here.

12. *Habsiguda* is named after the Abysinnian guards of the Nizam who were locally referred to as Habsis, they settled here during that time.

13. *Khairtabad* is believed to be named after Khairun Nissa, the wife of Capt James Kirkpatrick, mentioned in the book White Mughals by William Dalyrmple.

14. *Fateh Maidan* which houses the Old Cricket stadium, was used as a camping ground by the Mughal Army during their Siege of Golconda.  After Golkonda fell to the Mughals, it was named as *Fateh Maidan- or the Ground of Victory*.

15. *Tarnaka* literally means "Wired Checkpost", it gets it's name from the fact that the place had a Telegraph Office(Tar - khana) here and a Naka meaning Checkpost.

16. *Moazzam Jahi market or MJ Market* was named after the second son Moazzam Jah of the last Nizam. A Famous shopping center, MJ Market is also famous for it's home made ice creams of rare & wonderful flavours..🍦

*Moosarambagh* Monseiur Raymond was 'Michel Joachim Marie Raymond', a French general in the army of 2nd Nizam - Nizam Ali Khan, Asaf Jah II. Sadly, his fame fell when the Nizams began to favour the British East India Company, over the French alliance.

The French pronunciation for Monseiur Raymond was hard for our Farsi-Urdu-Telugu bred Hyderabadis. And they called him Musa  Rahim. If that was for Muslims, he became Musa Ram for Hindus.  Moosarambagh in Malakpet area is named after him.

*Miralam Tank and Miralam Mandi*
Mir Alam was a nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Hyderabad State from 1804 until his death in 1808. He was the grandfather of Salar Jung I. This family's private art collection is now in Salarjung Museum.

Gunfoundry was established by Monsieur Raymond where cannons were cast and finished.

Courtesy : Electron

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