A city has grown up around Golconda…

A city has grown up around Golconda fort in south-central India, but lack of space for expansion in the had prompted Mohammed Quli, the fifth Sultan of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, to call his advisers to search for a new virgin wooded elevated land site near a river, and one devoid of any man-made structures or monuments.

The city concept is planned on a gridron pattern with an iconic monument as the main foci.

Built from 1589 on the Musi River five miles (eight kilometers) east of Golconda in 1589, the planned site had been named as the City of Hyder after the title of the Fourth Caliph Ali, although many people believe that the city of "Hyderabad" was named after the people as their residence as "City of the Brave" from the Persian words "Hyder/Haider" (Persian and Urdu meaning lion or brave) and "Abad/Abaad" (Persian and Urdu meaning abode or populated) after their having survived the plague epidemic that had ravaged Golkonda.

There is another urban myth and folklore, probably apocryphal, that the Sultan had named it after his wife Hyder Mahal (it is unlikely, however, that he would given his spouse a male name or title).

The Sultan in 1591 orders the construction of the Charminar, a tall structure from which to survey the urban development and to keep watch over the river banks flooding the nearby areas, the source of grave epidemics of the kind the recent end of which this tower structure is built to commemorate.