Assi Ghat is one of the ghats often visited for recreation and during festivals. It is the southernmost ghat in Varanasi. On typical days about 300 people visit every hour in the mornings, and on festival days 2500 people arrive per hour. Most of the people visiting the ghat on usual days are students from the nearby Banaras Hindu University. The ghat accommodates about 22,500 people at once during festivals like Shivratri.
Assi Ghat is known for being a place where long-term foreign students, researchers, and tourists live. Hindus believe that it was at Assi Ghat that Tulsidas left for his heavenly abode.
After the 2010 Varanasi bombing the city commissioned extra police to the Assi Ghat neighborhood in order to more quickly resolve problems which tourists might have.