Whitefield is a neighbourhood of Bangalore in the state of Karnataka, India. Whitefield is heart of Silicon city of India, Bangalore. Whitefield is Known for its tech parks like ITPL and upmarket apartment complexes like Prestige Shantineketan, lively Whitefield is also a shopping and entertainment hub. Upscale malls like Phoenix Marketcity and VR Bengaluru house global brands, movie theaters, live music, and alfresco bars. Hip mall eateries serve Pan-Asian, European, and Indian cuisines. Beyond the malls, casual South Indian cafes and popular brewpubs are frequented by an after-hours office crowd.
Established in the late 1800s as a settlement for the Eurasians and Anglo Indians of Bangalore, Whitefield remained a quaint little settlement at the eastern periphery of Bangalore city till the late 1990s when the local IT boom turned it into a major suburb. It is now a major part of Greater Bangalore.
The locality is named after D. S. White, founder of the European and Anglo Indian Association which received 4,000 acres of land from Mysore Maharaja Chamaraja Wodeyar in the 19th century
Until the late 1990s, Whitefield was a small village. It has since become a major hub for the Indian technology industry. The Export Promotion Industrial Park (EPIP) at Whitefield is one of the country’s first information technology parks—International Tech Park, Bangalore (ITPB) which houses offices of many IT and ITES companies.
Whitefield is now officially part of Bangalore city which is part of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
Whitefield has started seeing a boom in residential construction since the latter half of 1990s and especially during 2002 and onwards.
There are two major four-lane roads connecting Bangalore city with Whitefield — Whitefield road via Mahadevapura and Varthur road (HAL Old Airport Road) via Marathahalli. Both roads intersect with Karnataka State highway 35 (SH 35) which runs north–south (Siddlaghatta in the north to Anekal in the south).
The Whitefield railway station is about 3 km north of the Whitefield Bus stop. It lies on the Bangalore-Chennai route and is double and electrified, the Krishnarajapuram-Whitefield railway station section is slated to be converted to a quadruple line.The station is slated to become a junction with a new Whitefield-Kolar (53 km; 33 miles) line being laid. Neighbouring the Whitefield railway station is Brindavan, the ashram and winter residence of the Hindu spiritual leader Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.
The Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) has a large inland container depot just off Whitefield road near ITPB.
Shopping malls like The Forum Neighborhood Mall, Phoenix Market City, Park Square Mall, Inorbit Mall, Forum Shantiniketan Mall and entertainment centres like IONA Entertainment are in the Whitefield area. It also houses the renowned super speciality hospital, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Whitefield, inaugurated by Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba on 19 January 2001, which offers all the medical services for free.Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre is the other major super-speciality hospital in Whitefield.
Whitefield has extensive city bus connectivity with a wide range of services offered by BMTC. A Traffic and Transit Management Centre (TTMC) in EPIP is functional with schedules connecting it with most areas of the city.
The much anticipated Namma Metro project is expected to cater to Whitefield under Phase 2. The Purple line will be extended from Baiyyappanahalli to Whitefield covering 13 stations in between.
There are multiple malls and food hotspots in and around the Whitefield area, some of them include –
- ITPL Mall (Park Square Mall)
- Forum Shantiniketan Mall
- Phoenix Marketcity (Bangalore)
- VR Bengaluru
- Inorbit Mall, Bangalore
- The Forum Value
These malls host multiple restaurants that cater to a variety of cuisines – Regional Indian cuisines, Japanese, Fast Food, etc.
Additional prominent standalone restaurants in the area apart from the ones hosted in malls include –
- Stoners (Burger and Ice Cream franchise)
- Windmills Craftworks (Restaurant and Micro-brewery)
- Pasta Street (Italian Cuisine)
- A2B – Adyar Ananda Bhavan (South Indian restaurant franchise)