1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
India
Compare this sourced profile of Varanasi, India before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Varanasi—1,164,404, Asia/Kolkata, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: city on the banks of the Ganges in the Uttar Pradesh state of India.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Varanasi is GeoNames ID 1253405. Its recorded administrative path is Varanasi → Uttar Pradesh → India, and GeoNames classifies the place as a populated place. Varanasi occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-07-24; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Varanasi ranks 463 by recorded population. Inside the 109 selected India entries it ranks 43; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 271. Its 1,164,404 population value is 1.16 times the 1,001,694 median for the country cohort and 1.15 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Varanasi sits in the second quarter of this atlas's India population cohort. Varanasi's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Varanasi's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Prayagraj at 118.12 km with 1,073,438 recorded people; Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) at 165.119 km with 674,246 recorded people; Patna at 215.588 km with 1,684,297 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 97.468 km. Compared with Prayagraj, Varanasi's recorded population is 1.08 times as large. Against Varanasi, Prayagraj follows Prayagraj → Uttar Pradesh → India in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected India cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kolkata identifier, and carries the same populated place class. Its recorded population is below Varanasi's. Against Varanasi, Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) follows Gorakhpur → Uttar Pradesh → India in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected India cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kolkata identifier, and carries the same populated place class. Its recorded population is below Varanasi's. Against Varanasi, Patna follows Patna → Bihar → India in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected India cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kolkata identifier, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than populated place. Its recorded population is above Varanasi's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 765 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Varanasi's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1253405, the coordinate pair 25.3167 / 83.0104, country rank 43 of 109, and neighbor GeoNames 1278994 at 118.12 km bind Varanasi to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Varanasi's reference point is 25.3167° north and 83.0104° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Kolkata is shared by 109 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPL is shared by 243 rows. Varanasi's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Varanasi's point falls in the lower-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Varanasi's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Varanasi, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Varanasi's closest other entries in this atlas are Prayagraj (118.12 km), Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) (165.119 km), Patna (215.588 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Varanasi, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-07-24; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.