The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured the Maha Kumbh Mela festival, the world’s largest human gathering, which took place in the city of Prayagraj in northern India.

Recognised by Unesco in its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Kumbh Mela is a Hindu pilgrimage held every few years, attracting tens of millions of pilgrims from India and across the globe. The event this year was held from 13 January to 26 February.

Four sacred cities take it in turn to host the festival, where pilgrims come to bathe in a cleansing ritual. In 2025 it was a Maha (Great) Kumbh Mela, which occurs only every 144 years, making it even more significant.

The images in the slider show the area at the confluence of the Ganges with the Yamuna river near Prayagraj, formerly known as Allahabad. The image on the left was captured on 13 December 2024, one month before the beginning of the festival, while the image on the right was taken on 27 January 2025, during the festival, and clearly shows the extent of the temporary structures built for the event.

A vast area covering more than 40 sq km along the banks of the Ganges river was converted into a sprawling tent city, with housing, electricity, drinking water, parking lots, around 150 000 toilets and 11 hospitals. A series of floating bridges are also visible in the river, connecting the two banks of the Ganges.

The name Kumbh Mela translates to ‘Festival of the Sacred Pitcher’ in Sanskrit, where Kumbh refers to the pitcher or pot that contained the nectar of immortality in Hindu mythology, and Mela means fair or gathering. Hindus believe that drops of the nectar fell on the four sacred cities that now host the pilgrimage.