Gooty Fort is one of the oldest hill forts in Andhra Pradesh, perched 300m above the plains at Gooty town, 52km from Anantapur. The earliest inscriptions date to around the 7th century, with Kannada and Sanskrit texts. The Vijayanagara monarch Bukka called it the "King of Forts." It subsequently passed through Qutb Shahi, Maratha (under Murari Rao), Mysore (Hyder Ali, 1773), and British hands.
The fort is built in the shape of a shell with 15 encircling fortifications and 15 main gateways flanked by bastions. The approach winds up a paved path through steep rock to the citadel at the summit. The cliff-edge pavilion called Morari Rao's seat commands a panoramic view of the town below. Several wells are cut into the rock, one reportedly connected by underground channel to the foot of the hill.