Delhi

Delhi is a very big city in India. Millions and millions of people live there.

It has old forts, a very tall tower and old market streets. India's capital, New Delhi, is one part of Delhi.

Delhi is a huge city in northern India that has been a capital for many centuries. Its full name is the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Inside it is New Delhi, the planned city where India's government meets today, and the old walled city called Old Delhi.

India's 2011 census counted 16,787,941 people in the territory, which covers 1,484 square kilometers. More people live in the towns that have grown around it.

Delhi is India's National Capital Territory, a union territory of 1,484 km² that contains New Delhi, the seat of the national government, alongside Old Delhi and many older and newer districts. India's tentative World Heritage entry for the city, submitted by India's delegation to UNESCO in 2012, describes it as a capital of kingdoms and empires for many centuries.

The 2011 census counted 16,787,941 people in the territory, up from 13,850,507 in 2001 and 9,420,644 in 1991; the Municipal Corporation of Delhi alone had 11,034,555. Results of India's next census have not yet been published, so these remain the latest official counts. UrbanRail.net notes that the wider metropolitan area spreads into the neighboring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The Qutb Minar is a very tall tower made of red stone. It is about 800 years old.

The Red Fort has thick red walls. Humayun's Tomb sits in a big garden.

In the south of Delhi stands the Qutb Minar, a tower of red sandstone 72.5 meters tall, built in the early 1200s. It gets narrower as it rises, and its sides are carved with ridges and bands of writing.

Humayun's Tomb, built in 1570, was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent: a tomb set in a large garden. UNESCO says it inspired later buildings, leading up to the Taj Mahal. In Old Delhi, the Red Fort was the palace of the emperor Shah Jahan and is named for its massive red sandstone walls.

UNESCO describes the Qutb Minar, built in the early 13th century in the south of the city, as a red sandstone tower 72.5 m high, tapering from 14.32 m across at the base to 2.75 m at the top, with alternating angular and rounded flutings, carved inscription bands and projecting balconies; it calls it the tallest masonry tower in India. Around it stand the Alai Darwaza gateway (1311) and the first storey of the unfinished Alai Minar, 25 m high.

Humayun's Tomb (1570) was the first garden-tomb on the subcontinent and, in UNESCO's words, inspired innovations that culminated in the Taj Mahal. The Red Fort, palace fort of Shahjahanabad, joins the older Salimgarh fort (1546) in the Red Fort Complex; its private pavilions are linked by a water channel, and UNESCO sees in it a fusion of Persian, Timurid and Hindu traditions.

Delhi has a metro. Some trains run high above the streets.

Other trains run in tunnels under the old city.

Delhi's metro opened its first line, the elevated Red Line, on 25 December 2002. By 2018 it had eight lines.

The Yellow Line was Delhi's first underground line. It runs north to south under the heart of the old city and on to Connaught Place. Under the crowded lanes of Old Delhi, Chawri Bazar station was dug 20 meters below the ground.

Planning for a metro began in the 1950s, but the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation was registered only in 1995 and work began in October 1998. According to UrbanRail.net, the first section of the fully elevated Red Line opened on 25 December 2002 from Shahdara to Tis Hazari, built to India's broad gauge of 1,676 mm; by 2018 the system had eight lines, including the Airport Express, and UrbanRail.net also lists a short Grey Line opened in 2019.

The Yellow Line, Delhi's first underground line, opened from Vishwa Vidyalaya (Delhi University) to Kashmere Gate in December 2004 and runs north–south through the old city to Connaught Place. Most of its central stations were built by cut-and-cover at 12.85 m below ground, but under the congested lanes around Chawri Bazar the builders tunneled, and that station lies 20 m deep.

Old Delhi has a main street called Chandni Chowk. It starts at the Red Fort.

People in Old Delhi have made music, poems and crafts for hundreds of years.

Chandni Chowk was the grand main street of Shahjahanabad, running from the Red Fort to a mosque at its far end. Shops and businesses line the main streets, while homes are grouped in inward-looking neighborhoods.

The Mughal court here saw a flowering of arts and crafts, of poetry in the Urdu language, and of its own style of music, the Delhi gharana. Indian independence is still celebrated at the Red Fort.

India's tentative-list entry describes Shahjahanabad as a city built around the Red Fort, with Chandni Chowk as its central ceremonial street and the Fatehpuri Masjid at its far end. Commerce lines the main 'spines', while residential quarters are inward-looking spaces, and it remained essentially a city for walking, at a human scale.

As the seat of the Mughal court, it saw a flowering of arts and crafts, of Urdu language and poetic forms, and of the Delhi gharana of music, which later extended to dance. The entry notes that in some areas businesses have replaced the residents of the old buildings. At the Red Fort, where UNESCO says independence was first celebrated, the celebration is still held.