The beautiful city of Bijapur is located in Karnataka in South India. It is famous for the many historic marvels that dot the city. The history of the city dates back to the 11th century when it was founded by the Chalukya dynasty. They referred to it as Vijayapura.

It was since the 14th century that the city was being called Vijapur or Bijapur when it came under the Bahamani sultanate of Gulbarga. The city was taken over by the Adil shah dynasty in the 15th century. Much of the city's greatness belongs to the monuments that were constructed during this period. After India's independence the place became part of the Bombay state but it was restored to Mysore in 1956.

In 1518, the Bahmani Sultanate split into five splinter states known as the Deccan sultanates, one of which was Bijapur, ruled by the kings of the Adil Shahi dynasty (1490-1686). The city of Bijapur owes much of its greatness to Yusuf Adil Shah, the founder of the independent state of Bijapur. The rule of this dynasty ended in 1686, when Bijapur was conquered during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

In 1724 the Nizam of Hyderabad established his independence in the Deccan, and included Bijapur within his dominions. In 1760, the Nizam suffered a defeat by the Marathas, and ceded the region of Bijapur to the Maratha Peshwa. After the 1818 defeat of the Peshwa by the British in the Third Anglo-Maratha War, Bijapur passed into the hands of the British East India Company, and was assigned to the princely state of Satara.

Bijapur is connected by a broad gauge railway (Gadag-Hotgi railway line) to Hotgi junction near Solapur and Kurduvadi on Central Railway towards the north and to Bagalkot on South West Railway towards the south. The metre gauge railway track from Bagalkot to Hotgi junction on the Hubli-Hosapete railway is being converted under Project Unigauge and is likely to commissioned in the second half of 2008.