How long did it take to build the Taj Mahal: the story in short

The Uttar Pradesh tourism site says construction of the complex began about 1631 and that the principal mausoleum was completed in 1648.^1,2 The outlying buildings and gardens were finished five years later, in 1653.³ So the answer to how long it took to build the Taj Mahal depends on the definition: the white tomb on its own, or the whole complex with its gateway, mosque and garden.

The Ministry of Tourism's Incredible India page puts the construction at 17 years.⁶ That figure fits the span from the start of work to the completion of the mausoleum, and it leaves the garden years outside the count. For a visitor, the plain rule is to quote the official dates, 1631, 1648 and 1653, and to treat the 17 years as the page's own summary.^1,2,3,6

The Taj Mahal construction time period matters for how you read the site. The gardens, the long pool and the gateway are later in the sequence than the dome, and they were designed to frame it. Walk from the gate to the tomb and you retrace the order in which the complex was finished, with the mausoleum as the first great statement and the garden as its setting.

The official creation page says a labour force of about 20,000 workers was recruited from across northern India.⁴ Incredible India gives a different count, 22,000 workers and 1000 elephants over 17 years of construction.¹⁴ The two official pages disagree on the number of workers, so read both as estimates. The history page adds that a fleet of 1000 elephants carried material to the site.²¹

The designer is less certain than the guides suggest. The creation page says history obscures precisely who designed the Taj Mahal, and that in the Islamic world of the time credit for a building usually went to the patron, not the architects.^22,23 That is why you will hear several names. The safe statement is that a team of architects designed and supervised the work, and that Shah Jahan was its patron.

The materials come from far and wide. The dominant material is the white marble from Makrana in Rajasthan.¹⁷ As many as 28 kinds of precious and semi-precious stones were used in the ornamentation: jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China, turquoise from Tibet, lapis lazuli and sapphire from Arabia and diamonds from Panna.^18,19 The Taj Mahal diamond history is that of small stones set in inlay, and not of one famous gem.

The monument has not always been cared for. The history page says that during the rebellion of 1857 British soldiers and officials defaced the Taj, chiselling out stones from its walls.⁹ By the late nineteenth century, parts of the buildings had fallen into disrepair, and the page records the decay as a fact of the period.

The repair came at the end of the century. The page says Lord Curzon, the viceroy, ordered a massive restoration that was completed in 1908.¹⁰ The garden was remodeled with British-style lawns around that time, and those lawns are still there. When you walk the garden, you are walking a landscape shaped by that restoration as well as by the original plan.

The monument became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.⁵ It is one of three World Heritage monuments in Agra, along with Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, and a visit can be built around all three.³⁵ The Taj Museum inside the complex opens 10.00 AM to 5.00 PM, and entry is free, which makes it an easy place to learn more once the building has your attention.²⁵