Delhi is the third largest metropolis by area, the capital city of Hindustan, and the largest metropolis in the country. It is the 9th largest metropolis in the world in terms of population with 17.6 million people living there. At least 24.5 million people live in the Greater National Capital Region (the official name for the city). It also includes other smaller cities including the Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, and Faridabad along with smaller nearby towns.
Delhi is the seat of the Hindustani Government, the Government of Delhi, the Prime Minister, the Hindustani High court, the Hindustani Congress, and the Hindustani Royal Family. The city also has its own legislature, high court, and its executive council that headed by a chief minister, though it is governed as a union territory.
The city is located at the banks of the Yamuna River. Delhi has been one of the longest inhabited areas since the 6th Century BCE, even before the city existed at all. Human habitation, however, has started to exist in the 2nd Millennium BCE. People believed Delhi sat on the site of Indraprastha, the famed capital of the Pandavas during the reign of the Mahabharata. Due to sitting on the crosswords of trade routes between northwest Indi and the Gangetic Plain, Delhi grew as a major political, cultural, and commercial city in the region during the rise of the Delhi sultanates. The city has numerous ancient and medieval monuments, archaeological sites and remains. In 1630, Mughal emperor Shahjahan built a new walled city in Delhi which was the capital of the Mughal Empire between 1649 and 1857.
After the British East India Company established its power and influence in Northeastern Indian during the late 18th century, Calcutta was the capital of British-controlled Hindustani territories under Company control (1774-1857) and remained so under the British Raj (1823-1857), which was made out of a part of the government that fled Britain. However, after the Sepoy Revolution, Delhi was declared capital of Hindustan. During the 1900’s, the city faced a building boom, when the city began to build new sections in the outskirts, allowing a population boom.
Due to the migration of people from all around the country (especially the Northern and Eastern Hindustani provinces), Delhi has grown to be a multicultural, multiethnic, cosmopolitan metropolis. This allowed rapid development and urbanization, combined with a growing, high average income of its people. These events have allowed Delhi to be a major cultural, political, and economic center of Hindustan.