Umaid Bhawan Palace (Hindi: उम्मैद भवन पैलेस), located in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, is one of the world's largest private residences.

The history of building the Umaid Bhawan Palace is linked to a curse by a saint who had said that a period of drought would follow the good rule of the Rathore Dynasty.

Thus, after the end of the about 50-year reign of Pratap Singh, Jodhpur faced severe drought and famine in the 1920s for a period of three consecutive years.

The farmers of the area, faced with this hardship, sought the help of the then Maharaja, Umaid Singh,[1] who was the 37th Rathore ruler of Marwar at Jodhpur,[2] to provide them with some employment so that they could survive the harsh conditions.

Lanchester patterned the Umaid Palace on the lines of the New Delhi building complex by adopting the theme of domes and columns.

There was some criticism for embarking on an expensive project but it had served the main purpose of helping the citizens of Jodhpur to face the famine situation.

Since the Maharaja had the foresight to bring his project to fruition, he built a railway line to the quarry site to transport the building material.

The principal architecture of the palace is an amalgam of Rajput-Saracenic, Classical Revival and Western Art Deco styles.

the Maharaja and his architect Lanchester had considered the features of Buddhist and Hindu edifices such as the Temple Mountain-Palaces of Burma and Cambodia, and in particular the Angkor Wat in preparing the layout and design of the palace.

[9] The museum has exhibits of stuffed leopards, a very large symbolic flag given to Maharaja Jaswant Singh by Queen Victoria in 1877, lighthouse shapes.