Located on the eastern coast along the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal, the unique State of Orissa offers a `tourism capsule` involving glorious temples, colourful wild life, luminous beaches, traditional tribal culture and an affluent heritage .To her credit, it has housed the important pilgrimage centre for the Hindus - Puri, the 13th century magic carved on sand stone - the Sun Temple, the wonder green land of the white tigers - Nandankanan, the largest brackish water lake of the continent - Chilka and several caves, Chaityas, temples, Stupas, forts and palaces. Statistics show that most visitors prefer the place of Lord Jagannath and the sand beaches. Temples of Orissa conforms to the Indo Aryan Nagara style of architecture, with distinctive features specific to the region. Revealing a royal splendor, an Orissan temple (deul) generally consists of a sanctum, one or more front porches (jagamohana) normally with pyramidal roofs, a hall of offerings (bhog mandir) and a dancing hall (nata mandir).

The temple sculptures of Orissa are of two major categories, namely the decorative motifs and the cult image. The principal category consist of such images as Kartikeya, Ganesh and Durga on the external walls of a Siva temple Varaha, Trivikra Nrusimha and the ten avataras on the outer walls on a Vishnu temple the Dikpalas, each in its specified corner, the digacharinis and vetalas in the prescribed places, the eight or nine planets (navagrahas or astagrahas) in a panel with gajalakshmi above the panel in case of all temples. There are also gods and goddesses, and illustration of different religious episodes to create a religious atmosphere. Although the cult images in a temple are the largest in number, they require being restricted to the cult alone. Religious mixture is reflected through the images of Ardanarisvara and Hari-Hara (as at Gandharadi). The sculptors were highly imaginative, for instance; all forms of Durga and Bhairavas images of plausible types are witnessed in the temples.

Some of the prominent temples of Orissa include the Jagannath Temple of Puri. This temple is visited by thousand of pilgrims throughout the year. The place is also a major tourist attraction due to its long and stretching sand beaches. Another major temple in Orissa is the Mukteshwara temple, situated in Bhubaneshwar.

Several other temples of Orissa include Svarnajaleswar Temple, Yameswar Temple near Khandagiri, Bhaskareswar Temple in Megeswar, Leaning Temple Huma near Sambalpur, Sarankul temple, Simhanath Temple in Cuttack District, Jagannath Temple in Deogaon, Sarankul temple on the Nayagarh- Aska Road, Biraja temple in Jajpur district, Laxminarayan Temple in Therubali, Sureswar and Gouri Temple in Bhubaneshwar and several others.

Well-known all over the world for its wonder in architectural designs, Orissa is home to some of the most prominent temples in India. Rightly explained as the temple city of India, temples of Orissa are among the most magnificent and spectacular kind.