Sapta Puri — the Seven Sacred Cities
The seven cities traditionally held to grant moksha (liberation) — among the oldest continuously-cited pilgrimage lists in Hindu tradition.
Significance & tradition
Each of the seven Puris is held to grant moksha to anyone who dies within its sacred boundary — a belief distinct from Jyotirlinga or Shakti Peetha traditions, which center on darshan and worship rather than liberation tied to place. Each city carries this reputation for a different reason in local textual tradition: Kashi through its association with Shiva, Ayodhya as Rama's birthplace, Mathura as Krishna's, and so on.
History
The sapta-puri grouping is cited across a range of Puranic texts and is considered one of the oldest stable pilgrimage lists in Hindu tradition, appearing in broadly the same seven-city form across centuries of textual reference.
How this list was compiled
An exhaustive, long-stable list of exactly seven cities.