Delhi

Delhi, formally the National Capital Territory, covers about 1,484 sq km on the western bank of the Yamuna. It is a Union Territory with its own legislature, a status it gained in 1991, and it sits inside the larger National Capital Region that extends into Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Delhi’s economy is overwhelmingly services: government, finance, trade, media, education and technology. It has almost no agriculture and only light manufacturing, most of it in the planned industrial areas set up after the 1990s. The city draws workers from across northern and eastern India, and the resulting inward migration shapes its housing, transport and water supply.

Air quality is the most visible recurring crisis. In the winter months, a combination of vehicle and industrial emissions, construction dust, and the burning of crop residue in Punjab and Haryana pushes particulate levels to among the highest recorded of any capital city in the world, and the city has repeatedly closed schools and restricted construction in response. The Yamuna carries a heavy pollution load, and the river’s floodplain has been the subject of long litigation over illegal construction.