The Corporation of the City of Panaji is the oldest civic institution in Asia. It received the status of a Portuguese city in 1843. It is also the world's smallest municipal corporation, catering to the civic needs of Goa's capital city of Panjim.

What is it that distinguishes Panaji from any other city in India? It is the only city in the country that has stepped streets. It is the only city in India with a seven kilometre long promenade. It is the first city in India to be built on a planned grid system and the only city to be so user friendly. It is also the only city in India to have been relocated stone by stone from a capital that fell to disease and ruin. Architectural styles range from Goan Domestic, to Indian Art deco, to Indo-European, to Indian Baroque and to British Colonial styles.

These are only some of the things that make the city unique. Finally, it is the people that live here that make it what it was in the past and what it is today. They will decide what the city will look like in the future. It is when the people of a city react to something the city planners are doing that one knows that they feel that this city belongs to them.

It is only when we manage to keep our beaches cleaner, make our traffic signs smarter, manage our garbage more efficiently, welcome more people to use our open spaces, beautify our gardens, romanticize our city skyline and make our streetscapes more human in scale that we know that the city really belongs to its citizens. One of the most dramatic of all these actions is the acknowledgement that the city has a history and that some of its buildings are evidence of that history.