During the Partition of India in 1947, Delhi was transformed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one, losing two-thirds of its Muslim residents, in part due to the pressure brought to bear by arriving Hindu and Sikh refugees from western Punjab. In 1911, New Delhi, a southern region within Delhi, became the capital of the British Indian Empire. Delhi was a notable centre of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Major Urdu poets from Delhi include Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib. The Khariboli dialect of Delhi was part of a linguistic development that gave rise to the literature of Urdu and later Modern Standard Hindi. The names of Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusrau are prominently associated with it. Delhi was the early centre of Sufism and Qawwali music.

All three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the city, the Qutub Minar, Humayun's Tomb, and the Red Fort, belong to this period. From the early 13th century until the mid-19th century, Delhi was the capital of two major empires, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, which covered large parts of South Asia. The topography of the medieval fort Purana Qila on the banks of the river Yamuna matches the literary description of the citadel Indraprastha in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata however, excavations in the area have revealed no signs of an ancient built environment. Delhi's urban agglomeration, which includes the satellite cities Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida in an area known as the National Capital Region (NCR), has an estimated population of over 28 million, making it the largest metropolitan area in India and the second-largest in the world (after Tokyo). According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million, while the NCT's population was about 16.8 million. The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi).

Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders with the state of Uttar Pradesh in the east and with the state of Haryana in the remaining directions. Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory ( NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India.

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