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New Delhi

City, 1911–1947

نئی دلینئی دہلیनई दिल्लीनयी दिल्ली

Today New Delhi, Delhi, India. Same place, same name.

Key facts

Historical name
New Delhi
Type
City
Coordinates
28.6139° N, 77.2089° E(seed dataset)
Governance
Directly administered
Record confidence
Medium confidence
Identifiers
Q987

Directly administered by the Governor-General of India, and therefore part of British India in the statutory sense of the Interpretation Act 1889, s.18.

Location

Pin placed at the coordinates recorded for this place. Colonial-era boundaries are not drawn.

Description

Purpose-built imperial capital laid out south of Delhi after the 1911 transfer of the capital; inaugurated in 1931.

Historical notes

Planned by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker; not present in the 1901 Census or the Imperial Gazetteer, which is why 1901 administrative fields are null.

Administrative history

Administrative parenthood changed over time. Each row states the years it is recorded for, and the source it comes from.

Administrative units this place is recorded under, by year
YearsRelationUnitConfidence
from 1912Part ofDelhiChief Commissioner's Province · Directly administeredNew Delhi did not exist at the 1901 census; its site lay in Delhi District, Punjab. The capital's transfer was announced at the Delhi Durbar on 12 December 1911 and Delhi was constituted a Chief Commissioner's Province in 1912, which is the first year in which New Delhi can be placed under a directly-administered unit of its own. Recorded at medium confidence: the sources cited by this project give the 1911 announcement and the 1931 inauguration precisely, but not a day-level date for the provincial constitution.Medium confidencesource

Recorded names

Every documented spelling and transliteration held for this place. The historical name is canonical; modern names redirect to it.

Name variants recorded for this place
NameScriptTypeYears
New DelhiLatinHistorical English
DelhiLatinAlternative spelling
Nai DilliLatinAlternative spelling
Nayi DilliLatinAlternative spelling
NDMC areaLatinAlternative spelling
New Delhi Municipal Council AreaLatinAlternative spelling
نئی دلیArabicIndigenous
نئی دہلیArabicIndigenous
नई दिल्लीDevanagariIndigenous
नयी दिल्लीDevanagariIndigenous
ਨਵੀਂ ਦਿੱਲੀGurmukhiIndigenous

Sources

  1. Encyclopedia· generalCC BY-SA

    Wikipedia: New Delhi, Wikimedia Foundation

    Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0

    Retrieved 2026-08-29

  2. Database· identityCC0

    Wikidata (Q987), Wikimedia Foundation

    Wikidata, CC0 1.0

    Retrieved 2026-08-29

Sources tagged “Licence unverified” are linked to rather than reproduced. Scans and images are only displayed inline where the licence is confirmed permissive.