Delhi, India’s capital territory
Delhi, India’s capital territory, is a massive metropolitan area in the country’s north. In Old Delhi, a neighborhood dating to the 1600s, stands the imposing Mughal-era Red Fort, a symbol of India, and the sprawling Jama Masjid mosque, whose courtyard accommodates 25,000 people. Nearby is Chandni Chowk, a vibrant bazaar filled with food carts, sweets shops and spice stalls.
Delhi,[b] officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its right bank, Delhi shares borders with the state of Uttar Pradesh in the east and with the state of Haryana in the remaining directions. Delhi became a union territory on 1 November 1956 and the NCT in 1995.[21] The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi).[4] According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million,[7][22] while the NCT's population was about 16.8 million.[9]
The topography of the medieval fort Purana Qila on the banks of the river Yamuna matches the literary description of the citadel Indraprastha in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata; however, excavations in the area have revealed no signs of an ancient built environment.[23] From the early 13th century until the mid-19th century, Delhi was the capital of two major empires, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, which covered large parts of South Asia. All three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the city, the Qutub Minar, Humayun's Tomb, and the Red Fort, belong to this period. Delhi was the early centre of Sufism and Qawwali music. The names of Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusrau are prominently associated with it. The Khariboli dialect of Delhi was part of a linguistic development that gave rise to the literature of Urdu and later Modern Standard Hindi. Major Urdu poets from Delhi include Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib. Delhi was a notable centre of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. In 1911, New Delhi, a southern region within Delhi, became the capital of the British Indian Empire. During the Partition of India in 1947, Delhi was transformed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one,[24][25] losing two-thirds of its Muslim residents, in part due to the pressure brought to bear by arriving Hindu and Sikh refugees from western Punjab.[26] After independence in 1947, New Delhi continued as the capital of the Dominion of India, and after 1950 of the Republic of India.
Delhi's urban agglomeration, which includes the satellite cities Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida and YEIDA city located in an area known as the National Capital Region (NCR), has an estimated population of over 28 million, making it the largest metropolitan area in India and the second-largest in the world (after Tokyo).[10] Delhi ranks fifth among the Indian states and union territories in human development index,[27] and has the second-highest GDP per capita in India (after Goa).[12] Although a union territory, the political administration of the NCT of Delhi today more closely resembles that of a state of India, with its own legislature, high court and an executive council of ministers headed by a chief minister. New Delhi is jointly administered by the federal government of India and the local government of Delhi, and serves as the capital of the nation as well as the NCT of Delhi. Delhi is also the centre of the National Capital Region, which is an "interstate regional planning" area created in 1985.[28][29] Delhi hosted the inaugural 1951 Asian Games, the 1982 Asian Games, the 1983 Non-Aligned Movement summit, the 2010 Men's Hockey World Cup, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2012 BRICS summit, the 2023 G20 summit, and was one of the major host cities of the 2011 and 2023 Cricket World Cups.
Toponym
There are a number of myths and legends associated with the origin of the name Delhi. One of them is derived from Dhillu or Dilu, a king who built a city at this location in 50 BCE and named it after himself.[30][31][32] Another legend holds that the name of the city is based on the Prakrit word dhili (loose) and that it was used by the Tomaras to refer to the city because the iron pillar of Delhi had a weak foundation and had to be moved.[32] According to Panjab Notes and Queries, the name of the city at the time of King Prithviraj was dilpat, and that dilpat and dilli are probably derived from the old Hindi word dil meaning "eminence". The former director of the Archaeological Survey of India, Alexander Cunningham, mentioned that dilli later became dihli/dehli.[33] Some suggest the coins in circulation in the region under the Tomaras were called dehliwal.[34] According to the Bhavishya Purana, King Prithiviraja of Indraprastha built a new fort in the modern-day Purana Qila area for the convenience of all four castes in his kingdom. He ordered the construction of a gateway to the fort and later named the fort dehali.[35] Some historians believe that Dhilli or Dhillika is the original name for the city while others believe the name could be a corruption of the Hindustani words dehleez or dehali—both terms meaning "threshold" or "gateway"—and symbolic of the city as a gateway to the Gangetic Plain
