Delhi

Delhi is not one city but nine, layered atop each other over 3,400 years. Legend traces the first settlement to Indraprastha, capital of the Pandavas around 1400 BCE, on the banks of the Yamuna. Eight successor cities rose and fell on this ground: Lal Kot, Siri, Dinpanah, Quila Rai Pithora, Ferozabad, Jahanpanah, Tughlakabad, and finally Shahjahanabad—each ruler building anew rather than inheriting. The site persists because it controls the passage between the Punjab plains and the Gangetic basin.

The Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526) made it South Asia's first Muslim capital; Timur sacked it in 1398, leaving 100,000 corpses. The Mughals restored its imperial status: Shah Jahan abandoned Agra in 1639 and spent nine years constructing Shahjahanabad with its Red Fort and Jama Masjid, entering his new capital in April 1648. When Mughal power collapsed, Delhi became a prize for Marathas, Afghans, and finally the British, who moved their capital from Calcutta in 1911 and constructed New Delhi to Lutyens' imperial geometry.

Today Delhi is a union territory containing New Delhi, India's national capital. The metropolitan area of over 32 million people generates $370-400 billion in GDP (PPP), making it India's most or second-most productive metro area depending on the estimate. Oxford Economics ranked it India's best city economically in 2024. It remains the largest commercial center in northern India—government, bureaucracy, and political power concentrated here as they have been for eight centuries.

The persistence comes at cost: Delhi is the world's most polluted capital city according to 2024 air quality data. The 2025 assembly elections ended AAP's decade of power, returning BJP to governance. The city's evolutionary pattern—serial destruction and rebuilding on the same strategic coordinates—continues: every regime adds a new layer, none abandons the location.