The Taj Mahal is a white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India.
It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) to house the tomb of his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The tomb is the centerpiece of a 17-hectare complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenelated wall.
Construction of the mausoleum was completed in 1648, but work continued on other phases of the project for another five years. The first ceremony held at the mausoleum was an observance by Shah Jahan, on 6 February 1643, of the 12th anniversary of the death of Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around ₹5 million, which in 2023 would be approximately US$77.8 million.
The building complex incorporates the design traditions of Indo-Islamic and Mughal architecture. The construction project employed more than 20,000 workers and artisans under the guidance of a board of architects led by Ustad Ahmad Lahori, the emperor's court architect.
The Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. The Taj Mahal is a major tourist attraction and attracts more than five million visitors a year.
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