DELHI

city and union territory, north-central India. The union territory comprises the cities of Delhi (which encompasses the area popularly known as Old Delhi) and New Delhi (India's capital from 1912), to the south, and adjacent rural areas. The area's economy and population centre mainly in Old Delhi, while government is concentrated in New Delhi; the territory as a whole is a focus of transportation for north-central India. Delhi has been the capital city of a succession of empires and kingdoms, and, according to tradition, the city has had various sites, all within a zone called the Delhi triangle. The union territory is situated on the western bank of the Yamuna River, a tributary of the Ganges River, and is bounded by the states of Uttar Pradesh (east) and Haryana (north, west, and south). To the west of Delhi is a northern extension of the Aravalli Range called the Delhi Ridge. The city and ridge stand about 100 miles (160 km) to the south of the Himalayas. The climate is extremely dry, with intensely hot summers, cold winters, and a post-summer monsoon season. In the union territory of Delhi, government and administrative service is the chief employer, and services generally are the most important sector of the economy; the industrial sector is second, and the commercial sector is third. In modern times, Delhi has also become a manufacturing centre with small- and medium-scale industries producing electronics and engineering goods, automobile parts, and electrical appliances. Traditional handicrafts, such as ivory carving, painting, brassware, and copperware, continue to be important, as are handloomed products and garments. Delhi has been the dominant trading and commercial centre of northern India for centuries. It is the headquarters of several commercial banks and a major stock-exchange centre. Transportation, storage, and the wholesale and distributive trades are also vital activities. The contrast between the convoluted street plan of Old Delhi and the orderly, diagonal traffic pattern in New Delhi is striking. In relation to Old Delhi, which has twice (in some places, five times) the population density, New Delhi exudes a feeling of openness and quiet, as do the Civil Lines upper-income residential areas to the north. In the old city there is a strong mohalla (neighbourhood) feeling in some quarters, though overall the social structure has become more heterogeneous owing to an influx of immigrants from other Indian states and adjacent countries. The most prominent nonarchitectural feature of New Delhi is Central Vista Park, the main east-west axis, along which are located governmental buildings, museums, and research centres. The thoroughfare divides the city in two, with the major shopping centre, Connaught, to the north and residential districts to the south. Delhi's striking architectural monuments are from virtually all periods of Indian history, especially emphasizing Indo-Muslim style; they include the intricate Qutb Minar and the Quwat-ul-Islam mosque, both of the Pashtun style; the Red Fort (Lal Qal'ah) and the Principal Mosque (Jama Masjid) are fine examples of Mughal architecture. The Parliament House (Sansad Bhavan) is an example of British-period architecture. Institutions of higher learning include the University of Delhi (founded 1922); Jawaharlal Nehru University (1969); institutes for agricultural, technological, and medical studies; and arts academies. Delhi lacks adequate mass-transit facilities; intracity transportation is a congested tangle of bullock carts, bicycles, automobiles, and trucks. Because of Delhi's geographic location, all land routes from northwestern India to the eastern plain must pass through the city; five national highways and several railway lines converge there. The Indira Gandhi International Airport and the adjacent Palam domestic airport serve this important air-traffic centre. Area Old Delhi, 360 square miles (932 square km); New Delhi, 169 square miles (438 square km); union territory, 572 square miles (1,483 square km). Pop. (1991 prelim.) Old Delhi, 7,174,755; New Delhi, 294,149; union territory, 9,370,475. city and union territory, north-central India. Popularly known as Old Delhi, it is the third largest city of India, surpassed in population only by Calcutta and Greater Bombay. New Delhi, the capital of the Indian Union, lies immediately to the south. Besides being at the political centre of the country, Delhi is also a focal point in India's transportation network. Delhi is situated about 100 miles (160 kilometres) south of the Himalayas and stands on the west (right) bank of the Yamuna River, a tributary of the Ganges. The union territory, which lies at an altitude of between 700 and 1,000 feet (213 and 305 metres), covers an area of 573 square miles (1,485 square kilometres). Of this area, Old Delhi occupies 360 square miles and New Delhi 169 square miles. The union territory is bounded on the east by the state of Uttar Pradesh and on the north, west, and south by Haryana. It generally has been presumed that the city was named for Raja Dhilu, a king who reigned in the 1st century BC , and that the various names by which it has been known (Delhi, Dehli, Dilli, and Dhilli) have been corruptions of this name. Delhi has been the capital city of a succession of mighty empires and powerful kingdoms, and numerous ruins mark the sites of the various cities. According to popular tradition, the city has changed its locality a total of seven times, although some authorities, who take smaller towns and strongholds into account, claim it has changed its site as many as 15 times. All these locations are confined to a triangular area of about 70 square miles called the Delhi triangle. Two sides of this triangle are represented by the rocky hills of the Aravalli Range in the west and south and the third side by the shifting channel of the Yamuna River. The present site of Delhi is bounded to the west by a northern extension of the Aravalli Range known as the Delhi Ridge. Additional reading Descriptive works, with maps and illustrations, include P.R. Mehendiratta, Coming to India and to Delhi (1972); India Tourism Development Corporation, Guide to Delhi, 2nd ed. (1982); Khushwant Singh, Delhi: A Portrait (1983); and Michael Alexander (ed.), Delhi & Agra: A Travellers' Companion (1987).Analyses of social and economic conditions and ethnic developments in the Delhi metropolitan area are given in V.K.R.V. Rao and P.B. Desai, Greater Delhi: A Study in Urbanisation, 19401957 (1965); United Nations Dept. Of International Economic And Social Affairs, Population Growth and Policies in Mega-Cities: Delhi (1986); Biswajit Banerjee, Rural to Urban Migration and the Urban Labour Market: A Case Study of Delhi (1986); and Ashok Ranjan Basu, Urban Squatter Housing in Third World (1988).For historical accounts, see Gordon Risley Hearn, The Seven Cities of Delhi, 2nd ed. (1928); Prabha Chopra (ed.), Delhi, History and Places of Interest, rev. ed. (1975); Narayani Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, 18031931: Society, Government, and Urban Growth (1981); H.K. Kaul (ed.), Historic Delhi: An Anthology (1985); and R.E. Frykenberg (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages: Essays in Urban History, Culture, and Society (1986). Vaddiparti Lova Surya Prakasa Rao K.V. Sundaram Vernon Ram History The earliest reference to a settlement at Delhi is found in the epic Mahabharata (a narrative about the descendants of the prince Bharata), which mentions a city called Indraprastha, built about 1400 BC under the direction of Yudhisthira, a Pandava king, on a huge mound somewhere between the sites where the historic Old Fort (Purana Qilah) and Humayun's Tomb were later to be located. Although nothing remains of Indraprastha, according to legend it was a thriving city. The first reference to the place-name Delhi, as already mentioned, seems to have been made in the 1st century BC, when Raja Dhilu built a city near the site of the future Qutb Minar and named it for himself. Thereafter Delhi faced many vicissitudes and did not reemerge into prominence until the 12th century AD, when it became the capital of the Cauhan (Cahamana) ruler Prthviraja III. After the defeat of Prthviraja in the late 12th century, the city passed into Muslim hands. Qutb-ud-Din Aybak, founder of the Mu'izzi (Slave) dynasty and builder of the famous tower Qutb Minar (completed in the early 13th century), also chose Delhi as his capital. 'Ala'-ud-Din Khalji (12961316) built the second city of Delhi at Siri, three miles northeast of the Qutb Minar. The third city of Delhi was built by Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughluq (132025) at Tughlakabad but had to be abandoned in favour of the old site near the Qutb Minar because of a scarcity of water. His successor, Muhammad ibn Tughluq, extended the city farther northeast and built new fortifications around it. It then became the fourth city of Delhi, under the name Jahanpanah. These new settlements were located between the old cities near the Qutb Minar and Siri Fort. Muhammad ibn Tughluq's successor, Firuz Shah Tughluq, abandoned this site altogether and in 1354 moved his capital farther north near the ancient site of Indraprastha and founded the fifth city of Delhi, Firuzabad, which was situated in what is now the Firoz Shah Kotla area. After the invasion and sack of Delhi by Timur (Tamerlane) at the end of the 14th century, the last of the sultan kings moved the capital to Agra, so that Delhi experienced a temporary diminution in its importance. Babur, the first Mughal ruler, reestablished Delhi as the seat of his empire in 1526. His son Humayun built a new city, Din Panah, on the site between Firoz Shah Kotla and the Purana Qal'ah. Sher Shah, who overthrew Humayun in 1540, razed Din Panah to the ground and built his new capital, the Sher Shahi (Purana Qal'ah), as the sixth city of Delhi. Delhi later again lost importance when the Mughal emperors Akbar (15561605) and Jahangir (160527) moved their headquarters, respectively, to Fatehpur Sikri and Agra, but the city was restored to its former glory and prestige in 1638, when Shah Jahan, Akbar's grandson, laid the foundations of the seventh city of Delhi, Shahjahanabad, which has come to be known as Old Delhi. The greater part of the city is still confined within the space of Shah Jahan's walls, and several gates built during his rulethe Kashmiri Gate, the Delhi Gate, the Turkman Gate, and the Ajmeri Gatestill stand. With the fall of the Mughal Empire during the mid-18th century, Delhi again faced many vicissitudesraids by the Maratha (a people of peninsular India), the invasion by Nader Shah of Persia, and a brief spell of Maratha rulebefore the arrival of the British in 1803. Under British rule the city flourished, except during the Indian Mutiny in 1857, when the mutineers seized the city for several months, after which British power was restored and Mughal rule ended. In 1912 the British moved the capital of British India from Calcutta to the partially completed New Delhi, the construction of which was finished by 1931. Since the independence of India, Delhi has grown far beyond its original size, spreading northsouth along the Yamuna River and spilling onto its eastern banks as well as over the Delhi Ridge to the west. New Delhi, once adjacent to Delhi, is now a part of the larger city, as are the sites of the former seats of empire. Between ancient mausoleums and forts have risen high-rise towers, commercial complexes, and other aspects of the modern city. This has left Delhi's city planners and administrators the difficult tasks of providing for an expanding population and preserving the essentials of the historic city.