Roorkee

Roorkee (Rūṛkī; Hindi: [ɾuːɽkiː]) is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is 31 km (19 mi) from Haridwar, the district headquarters. It is spread over a flat terrain under the Sivalik Hills of the Himalayas. The city is developed on the banks of the Ganges Canal, its dominant feature, which flows from north–south through the middle of the city. Roorkee became part of the Landhaura estate of the Gurjars in 1824 after the death of Ram Dayal Singh Gurjar. Roorkee is home to Asia's first engineering college the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, formerly known as Thomson College of Civil Engineering. Roorkee is also known for the Roorkee Cantonment, one of the country's oldest military establishments and the headquarters of Bengal Engineer Group since 1853. A freight train between Roorkee and Piran Kaliyar first ran on 22 December 1851, which was two years before the first passenger trains were started between Bombay and Thana in 1853 and 14 years after the first freight trains ran in Chennai in 1837.