About
Venugrama,the bamboo village
Belagavi is among the oldest cities in Karnataka and the largest in area — a district where the state meets Maharashtra and Goa, and has taken something from both.
- places in the department's 2024 list
- 101
- taluks in the district
- 13
- visits recorded across 2024
- 2,60,64,480
- earliest recorded antiquity
- 2nd c. AD
The bamboo village
Belagavi was Venugrama — or Velugrama — long before it was Belagavi: literally the bamboo village, for the venu that grew thickly here. It is among the oldest cities in Karnataka and the largest in area, and its recorded antiquity runs back to the 2nd century AD.
A zone of transition
The district sits where Karnataka meets Maharashtra and Goa, and it has taken something from each. What the department calls a zone of cultural transition shows up in the food, the language on the street and the festivals — Marathi and Konkani inflections folded into a Kannada culture rather than sitting beside it.
The freedom struggle
Belagavi is bound up with the fight for independence. Kittur Rani Chennamma raised her revolt against the East India Company here in 1824, three decades before 1857. A century later, in December 1924, the district hosted the 39th session of the Indian National Congress — the only session Mahatma Gandhi ever presided over. The Congress Well, dug to water the delegates, still stands.
The district today
It is a district of art, literature, spirituality, education, industry and sport. Visvesvaraya Technological University is based here, and every technical and engineering college in Karnataka comes under it.
The district’s story above is drawn from the Department of Tourism’s own pages at karnatakatourism.org, read on 20 September 2026.
Under whose office
Government of Karnataka
SiddaramaiahHon'ble Chief MinisterGovt. of Karnataka 
D.K ShivakumarDeputy Chief MinisterGovt. of Karnataka 
Satish JarkiholiDist. Incharge MinisterHon'ble Minister of Public Works 
H.K PatilMinister of TourismGovt. of Karnataka
District Administration and Tourism Department, Belagavi
Mohammad RoshanDeputy CommissionerChairman of DTDC, Belagavi 
Soumya BapatJoint DirectorTourism Department, Belagavi Div. 
Sadashiv BadigerDeputy DirectorTourism Department, Belagavi 
Rohit Singh, IASDeputy DirectorTourism Department, Belagavi
Where this comes from
The source
Every destination on this site comes from one document: the Department of Tourism’s List of Tourist Places, Belagavi District, January to December 2024. Each description is reproduced as the department wrote it, and the visitor figures are theirs.
Where we hold a photograph of somewhere that list does not cover, it is published with a notice saying so, and the assistant is instructed not to state history, dates or timings for it.
What it does not contain
The list records no opening hours and no entry fees, for any of the 101 places. Neither this site nor Ask Belagavi will state any, because getting that wrong sends someone on a long drive for nothing.
Coordinates are the second gap. We hold a reliable point for 89 of 111 places; for the rest the geocoder could only resolve the taluk town, which is not the place. Those pages offer a Maps search rather than directions, and are excluded from distance rankings entirely.
108 of 111 places carry a photograph. Most come from the department’s own list, which prints a picture beside each entry; those are small, so they appear on cards but not as full-width banners. 20 have high-resolution photography of their own. The remaining 3 are published as typeset entries rather than left out.
Contact
This site is published for the Department of Tourism, Government of Karnataka.
5th Floor, Indhana Bhavan, Race Course Road, Bengaluru 560 009, Karnataka, India+91-80-2235-2828feedback@karnatakatourism.orgHead office details as published at karnatakatourism.org.
For the district itself
Office of the Deputy Director, Department of Tourism, Belagavi District
Suvarna Soudha Building, East Gate, Basement Floor TP-14, Halaga, Belagavi 5900200831-2470879ddtourismb@gmail.comFrom the district’s own site, belagavitourism.com, read on 20 September 2026.