Cuttack is known as the cultural capital of Orissa. It lies near Bhubaneswar, Puri and Konark. This city was founded almost a thousand years ago, in 989 A.D and was the capital of Orissa for almost nine centuries, before Bhubaneswar was made the capital city in 1948. Cuttack along with Bhubaneswar is collectively known as the "twin cities" of Orissa. With its world famous exceptional filigree works in silver, ivory and brass works and textiles of woven silk and cotton, Cuttack city is perhaps the grandest showroom of Orissa. It is widely known as the Silver City because of its fine workmanship in silver.
Cuttack is a city of brotherhood or Bhai- Chara where people of all religious communities have been residing for centuries in harmony and co-operation.It is here that religious festivals ranging from Dussehra,Holi and Diwali to Id and Christmas are celebrated with equal fervour and devotion by people of all communities.

Apart from temples, the city of Cuttack has some old structures belonging to other faiths. The holy historicalSikh Shrine "`The Gurdwara Daatan Sahib`" is situated here. It is here that the first Sikh Guru, Shree Guru th Nanak Dev halted on his way to Puri, way back in the 15 century. It is believed that a “Sahada “ tree planted by him after using one of its twigs as a tooth Cleaner still flourishes here, hence is the name Daatan Sahib.
 
During the passage of time numerous Muslim monuments have been built at Cuttack. The Qadam-I-Rasool is a monument of beauty built by Shujaddin Khan.. It contains the footprint of the prophet Mohammed engraved in a circular stone. The dome outside is adorned with a golden pinnacle. The Shahi Mosque is situated inside the Barabati Fort.

Although there are several churches in Cuttack, the oldest among them all is the church of Epiphany on the Cantonment Road built in the year 1865.
Cuttack town has the distinction of having four Jain shrines of modern origin. The Digambar Jain temple at Choudhury Bazar, constructed during the second half of the 20 century,is remarkable for its artistic design.
 
Oriya is the official state language of cuttack in eastern India, on the Bay of Bengal, with 22 million speakers in orissa according to the 1981 census of India. It is a close relative of its northern neighbour Bengali, but it is written in a completely different script. Outside Oriya  language is also spoken in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar. Oriya literature can be traced back to at least the 13th century.The written Oriya language retains a conservative spelling system that owes much to Sanskrit. The sound system is simplified from Sanskrit, so there are some redundant letters in writing. Oriya also has numerous dialect differences.

Its morphology and syntax are broadly similar to Bengali, and the two languages are alike in having largely lost most of the old Indo-Aryan grammatical gender system, replacing it with natural gender. The Oriya verb system is distinguished by a great use of impersonal constructions.