[8] The city contains the administrative headquarters of the Rajkot District, 245 km from the state capital Gandhinagar, and is located on the banks of the Aji and Nyari rivers.

He served as a Member of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly for several years and as the state Minister for Health and Finance.

[9] On 26 January 2001 the 7.7 Mw  Gujarat earthquake shook Western India with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 13,805–20,023 dead and about 166,800 injured.

The district is surrounded by Botad in the east, and Surendranagar in the north, Junagadh and Amreli in the south, Morbi in the northwest and Jamnagar in the west and Porbandar in the southwest.

Rajkot has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh), with hot, dry summers from mid-March to mid-June and the wet monsoon season from mid-June to October, when the city receives 670 millimetres or 26 inches of rain on average.

The region experiences a lot of rainfall and high-speed winds during the time of the year after the monsoon season as well as the months of May and June.

Large chains, pendants and other heavy gold jewellery are a common sight during marriages, festivals and functions.

One can find many languages, like Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, English, Sindhi, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi.

The Jubilee Garden is a large, open park in the centre of the city featuring many monuments from colonial times.

[28] The Trimandir, a non-sectarian temple founded by Dada Bhagwan, is located at a short distance from the city.

[35] Rajkot has its own native music genre, called day,[36] which is used to convey folk stories and sayings.

Apart from cricket, other sports such as hockey, association football, volleyball, badminton, tennis, table-tennis, chess, swimming, and squash are rapidly growing popular in the city.

[37] There has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of private sports clubs, gymkhanas, and gymnasiums.

Kathiawar gymkhana, indoor stadium, and swimming pools of Rajkot Municipal Corporation are major sports clubs in the city.

Mata Ambe, who rides a lion, has a special reverential status with any highly religious Gujarati.

The economy of Rajkot was supported with a 280 million World Bank aid for development of infrastructure of the city.

[citation needed] The plans are already in place to beautify and modernise the ancient city, including a Rock Garden, ala Chandigarh.

Another 250 million project to rebuild the Kaiser-e-Hind, the only major bridge linking to the city, is already nearing completion.

The majority of foundry units in Rajkot produce grey iron castings for the domestic market.

Rajkot also houses Western Region Pipelines Headquarter of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) near Gauridad village.

As per recent market reviews, Rajkot is becoming Asia's biggest automobile zone.The city involves development of a Green Field Area covering approximately 930 acres of land with an estimated project cost of Rs 2100 cr.

Citizens can now get all their complaints registered with the Rajkot Municipal Corporation by dialling a single number with an assurance that the problem would be addressed within 72 hours.

Rajkot Municipal Corporation has restored city bus services with Public Private Partnership in 2007.

[44] a new Bus rapid transit System (BRTS) with launching of the 10-km long Blue corridor and two AC buses which will be free for the first three months.

Rajkot BRTS RouteThe fully completed project in future will have two more corridors – green and red from Arvind Maniyar Nagar to Saurashtra University and Greenland Chowk to Saurashtra University respectively involving 157 buses in three colours.

The older Rajkot Airport (IATA: RAJ, ICAO: VARK) remains open for general aviation, including charter flights.

[48] State-owned All India Radio has a local station and has FM channel 102.4 Vividh Bharati in Rajkot which transmits various programs of mass interest.

Rajkot is famous for providing education to Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhiji), at the Alfred High School.

It is a CBSE Board affiliated, residential school for girls and boys, providing education to those selected at the Class VI level all India entrance test.

[52][53] The city is home to Saurashtra University, several colleges, and other institutions of higher education, both public and private.