ORIGINAL PAPER Generation of Liquefaction Potential Map for Kanpur City and Allahabad City of Northern India: An Attempt for Liquefaction Hazard Assessment Sambit Prasanajit Naik . Nihar Ranjan Patra Received: 17 March 2017 / Accepted: 6 August 2017 Ó Springer International Publishing AG 2017 Abstract Kanpur City and Allahabad City are the most populous city and the largest urban agglomera- tion among other north Indian cities. Both the cities are situated along Ganga and Yamuna River. The study areas are one of the growing urban centers in Northern India. Two large Himalayan earthquakes experienced by this area during 1803 A.D. and 1934, and large- scale liquefaction was reported in and around the area along with the recent 2015 Gorkha earthquake which caused severe shaking. As per the IS-1893–2002, the study area lies in seismic zone III and the soils from the above cities are prone to liquefaction. However, no such attempt has been made so far for the detailed liquefaction potential map for the study area. The present study is an approach towards evaluation and preparation of spatial distribution map of liquefaction potential for the Kanpur City and Allahabad City using several bore hole data collected from the study area. The PGA used for the liquefaction potential analysis was taken from the ground response analysis of Kanpur soil and Allahabad soil. The PGA values are 0.25 and 0.18 g for Kanpur soil and Allahabad soil respectively. The results are presented in the form of factor of safety contour map at a depth of 7, 15, 24 and 30 m below the ground surface. The map indicates that most of the sites in Kanpur City and Allahabad City area are susceptible to liquefaction and hence this aspect has to be considered in earthquake-resistant design of foundations/structures in Kanpur City and Allahabad City. Keywords Liquefaction  CRR  CSR  PGA  Spatial distribution 1 Introduction Liquefaction induced damage along the sedimentary basins of the world due to occurrence of large magnitude earthquakes around the globe viz. 1934 Bihar–Nepal border earthquake, 1957Abant earth- quake, Turkey, 1960 Chile earthquakes, 1964 Niigata Earthquakes, 1964 Alaska earthquakes, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, 1995 Kobe earthquake, 2001 Bhuj earthquake, 2004 Chu ¯etsu earthquake, 2005 Kashmir earthquake, 2011 Christ Church earthquake, 2011 Tohoku earthquake raises the concern of both engi- neering geologists and geotechnical engineers towards proper evaluation of liquefaction susceptibility. Ground failure due to liquefaction causes severe engineering problems like large displacements of S. P. Naik Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India e-mail: sambitprasanajit_naik@yahoo.in N. R. Patra (&) Geotechnical Engineering Division, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India e-mail: nrpatra@iitk.ac.in 123 Geotech Geol Eng DOI 10.1007/s10706-017-0327-4