From the Gangetic plain to the Delaware Valley

Uttar Pradesh

1. The land between the rivers

   Uttar Pradesh lies across the plain of the Ganga and the Yamuna — the doab, the land between two rivers. It is one of the oldest continuously lived-in places on earth, and the rivers have shaped its farms, its cities and its prayers.

2. Sacred places

   Kashi, the city also called Varanasi. Ayodhya, where tradition remembers the first Diwali lamps lit to welcome Rama home. Mathura and Vrindavan, Krishna’s Braj, where Holi is played as nowhere else. Prayagraj, where the rivers meet. Sarnath, where the Buddha first taught, and Kushinagar, where he passed.

3. Awadh and its shared culture

   In 1775 the capital of Awadh moved from Faizabad to Lucknow, and the city became a home for poetry, music, Kathak and the white-on-white embroidery called chikankari. Awadh gave a name to the way its communities lived together: Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.

4. Many languages, one home

   Khari Boli, spoken around Delhi and western UP, became the base of modern Hindi and Urdu. Around it live Awadhi — the language of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas — Braj Bhasha, in which Surdas sang of Krishna, Bhojpuri, Bundeli and Kannauji.

5. A name of its own

   The United Provinces became Uttar Pradesh on 24 January 1950. Since 2018 that day has been kept as UP Diwas — two days before Republic Day, which UPAGP marks each year at its annual meeting.

How UPAGP began

In 2001, families from Uttar Pradesh living around Philadelphia came together to form the U.P. Association of Greater Philadelphia — a place to meet, to keep Hindi and the culture of the Gangetic plains alive for their children, and to help where help was needed.

What we set out to do

• Give families from UP a place to meet and stay in touch.
• Keep UP’s cultural and literary heritage alive, here.
• Support education, welfare and charitable causes for people in need.
• Embrace the traditions of our adopted home as well.

The founding families’ own account of 2001 — in their words and voices — will be added here.

Every president since 2001

The Year in UPAGP

Each year becomes part of the story