Fort William, India in the context of "Kolkata"

Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, 80 km (50 mi) west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary financial and commercial centre of eastern and one of the gateways to northeastern India. Kolkata is the seventh most populous city in India with an estimated city proper population of 4.5 million (0.45 crore) while its metropolitan region Kolkata Metropolitan Area is the third most populous metropolitan region of India with a metro population of over 15 million (1.5 crore). Kolkata is regarded by many sources as the cultural capital of India and a historically and culturally significant city in the historic region of Bengal.

The three villages that predated Calcutta were ruled by the Nawab of Bengal under Mughal suzerainty. After the Nawab granted the East India Company a trading license in 1690, the area was developed by the Company into Fort William. Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah occupied the fort in 1756 but was defeated at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, after his general Mir Jafar mutinied in support of the company, and was later made the Nawab for a brief time. Under company and later crown rule, Calcutta served as the de facto capital of India until 1911. Calcutta was the second largest city in the British Empire, after London, and was the centre of bureaucracy, politics, law, education, science and the arts in India. The city was associated with many of the figures and movements of the Bengali Renaissance. It was the hotbed of the Indian nationalist movement.

The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal until 1937, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule and later a Province of British India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal (present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal). Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the governor of Bengal was concurrently the governor-general of India and Calcutta was the capital of India until 1911.

The Bengal Presidency emerged from trading posts established in the Bengal province during the reign of Emperor Jahangir in 1612. The East India Company (EIC), a British Indian monopoly with a royal charter, competed with other European companies to gain influence in Bengal. In 1757 and 1764, the company defeated the Nawab of Bengal, who acted on Mughal sovereignty, at the Battle of Plassey and the Battle of Buxar, and Bengal came under British influence. In 1765, Emperor Shah Alam II granted revenue rights over Bengal to the company and the judicial rights in 1793. After this, the Bengal province was later merged with the Presidency of Fort William but under the suzerainty of the Emperor until 1835.