The Rashtrapati Bhavan is the official residence of the president of which country?

The Rashtrapati Bhavan is the official residence of the President of India at the western end of Rajpath in New Delhi, India. In terms of area, it is the largest residence of any head of state in the world.

Consisting of four floors and 340 rooms, with a floor area of 200,000 square feet (19,000 m2), it was built using 1 billion bricks and 3,000,000 cu ft (85,000 m3) of stone with little steel.

The present day Rashtrapati Bhavan was the erstwhile residence of the British Viceroy. Its architect was Edwin Landseer Lutyens. The decision to build a residence in New Delhi for the British Viceroy was taken after it was decided in the Delhi Durbar of 1911 that the capital of India would be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi in the same year.

The design of the building fell into the time period of the Edwardian Baroque, a time at which emphasis was placed on the use of heavy classical motifs in order to emphasise power and imperial authority.

On 26th January 1950 Dr. Rajendra Prasad became the first President of India and occupied this building to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of India. It was from that day that this building was renamed as Rashtrapati Bhavan - the President's House.

It is interesting to note that the building which was scheduled to be completed in four years took seventeen years and on the eighteenth year of its completion, India became independent.