Urban Growth of New Delhi

The capital of India, New

Delhi, has been experiencing one of the fastest urban expansions in the world. Vast areas of croplands and

grasslands are being turned into streets, buildings, and parking lots,

attracting an unprecedented amount of new residents. By 2050, the United

Nations projects India will add 400 million urban dwellers, which would be

the largest urban migration in the world for the thirty-two year period.

These images show the growth in the city of New Delhi and its

adjacent areas—a territory collectively known as Delhi—from December 5, 1989 to June 5, 2018. 

Most of the expansion in Delhi has occurred on

the peripheries of New Delhi, as rural areas have become more urban. The

geographic size of Delhi has almost doubled from 1991 to 2011, with the number of urban households

doubling while the number of rural houses declined by half. Cities outside of

Delhi—Bahadurgarh, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, and Gurugram—have also

experienced urban growth over the past three decades, as shown in these images.

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