Kumbh Mela: 14 January – 25 February 2013 Allahabad, India

field notebooks and maps for the Harvard Mapping the Kumbh Mela research team. More Info: Global Health Initiative ; Participant Blog; Government Site

"The Kumbh Mela is a Hindu religious fair that occurs every 12 years at the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers on the plains of northern India. Since its inception early in the first millennium CE, the Kumbh Mela has become the largest public gathering in the world. Today it draws tens of millions of pilgrims over the course of a few weeks to bathe in the sacred rivers.

A temporary city is created every twelve years in Allahabad to house the Kumbh Mela’s many pilgrims. This city is laid out on a grid, constructed and deconstructed within a matter of weeks; within the grid, multiple aspects of contemporary urbanism come to fruition, including spatial zoning, an electricity grid, food and water distribution, physical infrastructure construction, mass vaccinations, public gathering spaces, and nighttime social events."