Built in the 14th and 15th centuries, Ita Fort, which literally means fort of bricks, is an important heritage site in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. It is in an irregular shape and is made from bricks from the same era. The fort has guarded the kingdom from enemies for years with its high walls and its relevance is such that the name of the city of Itanagar comes from it.

Ita Fort is enclosed by brick ramparts and natural ridges. It is believed that around 80 lakh bricks were used to construct the fort in those days with the volume taken by it totalling 16,200 cubic m. Another interesting fact about the construction of the fort is that it took around 45,000 man days for its construction. There are three different entrances – eastern, western and southern – to the fort. While the eastern rampart of the fort is more than half-a-kilometre long and has one gate, the western rampart is over 1.4 km long with two gates. The original height of the rampart was around 5 m and the average wall width around 1.5 m. Irregular steep ridges of over a kilometre long in each of the northern and southern directions provided natural defence. Built of stone masonry, the eastern gate overlooks Doimukh in Dikrang Valley whereas the southern gate was constructed with brick along with the use of stone and stone-slabs. Floral and animated designs were used to beautify the doorways which are nowhere to be found now. These doors acted as a checkpoint for enemies approaching the fort from Gohpur and Ramghat in the south. Probably the main entrance was the one in the west which faced River Senkhi.

While scholars attribute Ita Fort to Jitari dynasty’s King Ramachandra who apparently constructed it between 1350 and 1450 AD, another more recent view is of the opinion that it was built in 1688 AD by Ahom king Chakradhvaj Simha.