Agra is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is 206 kilometres south of the national capital New Delhi. Agra is the fourth-most populous city in Uttar Pradesh and 24th in India.

Agra is a major tourist destination because of its many Mughal-era buildings, most notably the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Agra is included on the Golden Triangle tourist circuit, along with Delhi and Jaipur; and the Uttar Pradesh Heritage Arc, a tourist circuit of Uttar Pradesh, along with Lucknow and Varanasi. Agra is in the Braj cultural region.

The history of Agra before the Delhi Sultanate is unclear. A 17th century chronicle called the Agra before Sikandar Lodī's time (1488–1517) as an old settlement which was merely a village, owing to its destruction by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. The 11th-century Persian poet Mas'ūd Sa'd Salmān writes of an assault on the fortress of Agra, then held by King Jaypal, by Mahmud of Ghazni. Despite his surrender, Mahmud sacked the place. It was mentioned for the first time in 1080 AD when a Ghaznavide force captured it. Sikandar was the first sultan to move his capital from Delhi to Agra in 1504, its administration having previously been under Bayana. He governed the country from here and Agra assumed the importance of the second capital. He died in 1517 and his son, Ibrāhīm Lodī, remained in power there for nine more years. Several palaces, wells, and a mosque were built by him in the fort during his period. He was finally defeated at the Battle of Panipat in 1526. Between 1540 and 1556, Afghans, beginning with Sher Shah Suri, ruled the area. It was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1556 to 1648. The city was later taken by the Marathas and later still fell to the British Raj.