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India's National Capital Territory is a city-state unlike any other in the country: a seat of national government, a 3,000-year-old settlement layered with seven historic cities, and one of the most densely populated, economically productive, and environmentally stressed urban regions on Earth.

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Delhi's per-capita incomeAverage income per person — total income (often GSDP) divided by population. of ₹5,12,131 (2023-24) is roughly 2.4 times India's national average — yet nearly half its population still lives in slums or unauthorized colonies without full civic amenities.

Snapshot

Delhi sits on the Indo-Gangetic plain straddling the Yamuna River, bordered by Haryana on three sides and Uttar Pradesh to the east. It became a Union Territory in 1956 and gained special National Capital Territory status with its own legislature in 1991-92. Governance is split between the Delhi government (NCTNational Capital Territory — Delhi's official administrative status, granting it its own legislature while central government retains control of law, order, and land.), the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the New Delhi Municipal Council, and the central government, which retains control of law and order and land — a layered structure examined in detail in Chapter 03 and that shapes nearly every policy challenge covered later in this report. Administratively, Delhi is organized into 13 districts as of January 2026 (up from 11), reflecting continued urban expansion and administrative reorganization roughly every decade since the 1970s.