queuing
the world’s largest gathering
the ‘maha kumbh mela’ takes place once every 12 years in allahabad, india, and is the largest of 4 gatherings which make up the hindu pilgrimage known as kumbh mela.
pilgrims travel from all over the world in order to bathe in the sacred ganges river as they believe that doing so frees them from past sins.
in 2001 the most recent maha kumbh mela took place and over a period of 6 weeks 70 million people attended, 30 million alone on january 24th. below is an incredible satellite image of the 2001 gathering, the dark red specks being the thousands waiting to bathe in the ganges, the white dots boats.
click on the photo for a bigger, zoomed-out version.
discussion
9 comments for “the world’s largest gathering”
post a comment
deputydog favourites
- adaptive reuse
- art of manliness
- bldgblog
- boing boing
- cineleet
- dark roasted blend
- environmental graffiti
- fogonazos
- freshome
- gcaptain
- grow-a-brain
- look at this
- matt gilluley photography
- metube
- miss cellania
- neatorama
- plastique monkey
- pruned
- startling moniker
- super colossal
- things
- think or thwim
- unique daily
- videosift
- web urbanist
© 2007 deputydog.
The sea of humanity on the banks of a river.
Bathing with 70 million other people? Not my idea of a good time
impressive. : )
Never realized Kumbh Mela is that BIG. The Satellite shot is an awesome sight.
wonderfullllllllllll,it will be greatt teaching for people in all over the world
No,it is Not The largest gathering Of people, gathering Of moslems In Maka Is most largest than this.
hello ….
Realy it is wonderfull……. but in iran every year in 22 bahman, day of freedom (11 feburay) ,in all cities most people (about 8-12 million) gather in city centers.( iran’s population : 70million - india’s population: 1,200 million ==> 8/70=0.8 and 30/1200 = 0.05).
mordi e mainn!
how much we are tinny from above!