147 years ago, this Bengaluru location looked like this. Can you identify where?

The photo captures a busy junction or roundabout with a central island featuring a tall lamp post.

A rare black-and-white photograph of Bengaluru’s City Market from the pre-Independence era is making rounds on social media platform Instagram. The image, which appears to have been taken several decades ago, offers a fascinating glimpse into the city’s past.

The image, which appears to have been taken several decades ago, offers a fascinating glimpse into Bengaluru’s past. (Instagram@karnatakaportfolio)

The image shared by Karnataka Portfolio on Instagram has been widely circulated online. The photo captures a busy junction or roundabout with a central island featuring a tall lamp post.

Several people can be seen commuting on bicycles, while a few pedestrians and early-model motorcycles appear in the frame. An old-style cart or auto-rickshaw is also visible in the foreground, adding to the vintage charm of the scene.

In the background, the buildings display low-rise architecture and signage typical of older Indian marketplaces. The overall setting suggests a lively urban area, likely near the heart of the city’s trading hub, with residents going about their daily routines.

In a separate news, few months back, a Bengaluru man’s nostalgic post featuring a rare photograph of Cubbon Park from 1948 has gone viral on social media, sparking conversations about the city’s lost lakes, vanishing greenery, and the politics of urban development.

The man captioned the then-and-now comparison with, “So Bengaluru actually made the central lung space much greener over the past 77 years! Cubbon Park aka Chamarajendra Park.”

The viral Cubbon Park photo was widely reshared online, though the original source of the 1948 image remains unclear.

The post quickly drew mixed reactions. While some users pointed out that Bengaluru was once filled with hundreds of lakes and several mini-forests, they argued that Cubbon Park’s importance as a “lung space” became prominent only after the city lost most of its other green zones.

Others suggested restoring its old name Chamarajendra Park, while some drew parallels to Mumbai’s Aarey Colony, where activists had opposed the Metro car shed project.