Gardens of Babur

Bagh-e Babur is a terraced Mughal garden laid out around 1528 by Zahir ud-Din Muhammad Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, on a hillside in southwestern Kabul's old city. Babur chose the site as his own burial place; his open marble tomb sits amid cypresses and fruit trees on the upper terraces — an unusually modest resting place for a dynasty that would go on to build the Taj Mahal. Heavily damaged during decades of civil war, the gardens were restored from 2003 onward through an Aga Khan Trust project and placed on UNESCO's tentative list in 2009. Today the park serves as one of Kabul's rare green public spaces, where families picnic on the stone terraces while the hilltop position offers a wide panorama over the city and the surrounding Hindu Kush foothills.