Howrah or Haora is an industrial city in West Bengal, India. It is also the name of the Howrah administrative district which includes the city and its surroundings. It is on the west bank of the Hoogli River, and is Kolkata's twin city. It is West Bengal's second largest city. The two cities are linked by the famous Howrah Bridge (Rabindra Setu), as well as the Vidyasagar Setu (the second Howrah Bridge) and the Vivekananda Setu bridges. The city also contains Howrah Station, one of the major train stations serving Kolkata as well as Howrah.

The name came from the word "haor" -- meaning in Bengali, a place for exit of water and mud. History of Howrah dates back to 500 years. Venetian explorer Ceasare Federici was the first european who mentioned a place called Bator in his journal in 1578. This place is identifiable with the modern day place of the same name around the Howrah City.

In 1713, the Bengal Council of British East India Company, on the accession of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar, grand son of Aurangzeb, to the throne of Delhi, sent a deputation to him praying for a settlement of the villages 'Salica'(Salkia), 'Harirah'(Howrah), 'Cassundeah'(Kasundia), 'Ramkrishnopoor' (Ramkrishnapur), and 'Battar'(Bator) to the west of Bhagirathi.

As soon as the settlement was made in favor of the Company, the places were quickly adopted as exit and entry point of seafaring business, and the modernisation of Howrah city began. The entire area eventually was named as Howrah, the biggest among those five villages. The name 'Howrah' first appeared in records of the East India Company in 1714.

Today, Howrah is famous for Howrah Station and Howrah Bridge.

Howrah is located at 22.59° N 88.31° E. It has an average elevation of 12 metres (39 feet).

Even though it is the second largest city in the state, it did not observe appropriate infrastructure development in the last century. As a result, Howrah is continuing to face its perennial problems like traffic congestion, population explosion and pollution. The ratio of roadspace to the population is too low in this city, even comparatively smaller towns like Baharampur enjoy a better ratio.

The emigrant labor force from the rest of the state's rural areas and neighboring states take refuge in the cheaper quarters in Howrah, bringing the already poor infrastructure to the brink of collapse. Many times such migrations reduce a locality to a poor-infrastructure slum. The name of the novel City of Joy, which has been often the name the Kolkata metropolis been called, is actually based on one such slum of Howrah.

However, recently, work has been done on broadening the national highways and several towns roads. These activities are expected to help in improvement of traffic conditions. Of late, Howrah has seen a lot of new industrial proposals like the Kona Truck Terminus, Kolkata West International City and relocation of the old smoky foundry plants.