Gaur Gour, Or Lucknouti, a ruined city of Bengal, British India, 179 m. N. of Calcutta. Its remains are spread over a range of low hills which extend along the E. bank of the Bhagruttee, and cover a space 7 m. long (15 m. including suburban villages) by 2 or 3 m. broad. Many of the buildings have been demolished for the sake of the bricks of which they were constructed, but several grand edifices are still standing. Of these the most remarkable are a mosque, built of brick, and lined with a kind of black porphyry, a curious building faced with bricks of various colors, an obelisk 100 ft. high, numerous reservoirs, and two lofty gates of the citadel. Several villages have grown up on part of the site, and the rest is mainly covered with forests or is under cultivation. - The earliest record of Gour dates from 648, when it was governed by independent chieftains. At the beginning of the 13th century it was taken by an officer of the viceroy of Delhi under Shahal ud-Din, monarch of Ghore in Afghanistan; and in 1212 it became the capital of Bengal, an eminence which it retained, except during an interval of about 50 years previous to 1409, until the British gained possession of the district in the 18th century.

Its decline, however, began about 1574, when Monaim Khan, commander of Akbar's troops, captured it and made it the seat of an independent power, but in a few months fell a victim, with nearly all his troops, to the deadly climate. No cause has since contributed so much to its decay as the diversion of the Ganges from its former to its present channel, 4 or 5 m. distant, in the 17th century.