Channapatna Wooden Toys Craft Site

Channapatna’s wooden toy industry has earned the town the nickname “Gombegala Ooru” — Toy Town — and a Geographical Indication tag for its distinctive lacquered, hand-turned wooden toys. Local tradition credits Tipu Sultan with inviting Persian craftsmen to train local artisans in the lac-turnery technique in the late eighteenth century, seeding a craft that has since passed down through generations of family workshops.

Craftsmen use soft ivory-wood (Wrightia tinctoria) turned on a lathe and coloured with natural, food-safe vegetable dyes rather than paint, producing the smooth, brightly banded toys — spinning tops, dolls, rattles — that are now sold across India and exported abroad, even as the traditional workshops face competition from mass-produced plastic toys.

Getting there: Channapatna sits directly on NH275 between Bengaluru and Mysuru, about 60 km from Bengaluru; toy workshops and showrooms line the highway near the post office.