Delhi at a Glance

Delhi is the capital of India, its third-largest city and north India's industrial hub. Old Delhi was the capital of Muslim India between the 17^th and 19^th centuries. In Old Delhi you will find many mosques, monuments and forts relating to India's Muslim history. New Delhi was built as the imperial capital of India by the British. It is a spacious, open city and contains many embassies and government buildings.

In addition to its historic interest and role as the government centre, Delhi is a major travel gateway. It is one of India's busiest entrance points for overseas airlines, the hub of the north Indian travel network, and a stop on the overland route across Asia. The city of Delhi covers most of the Delhi Union Territory, a federal district similar to Washington DC.

New Delhi is a planned city of wide, treelined streets, parks and fountains, but still with the Indian touches of doe-eyed cows calmly ignoring the traffic and squatter hovels on waste land. It can be further subdivided into the business and residential areas around Connaught Place and the government areas around Rajpath to the south. At the eastern end of Rajpath is the Indian Gate memorial and at the west end is Rashtrapati Bhavan, the residence of the Indian President.

The hub of New Delhi is the great circle of Connaught Place and the streets that radiate from it.

Here you will find most of the airline offices, banks, travel agents, state tourist offices and the national one, more budget accommodation and several of the big hotels. The Regal Cinema, at the south side of the circle, and the Plaza Cinema, at the north, are two important land marks and are useful for telling taxi or auto-rickshaw drivers where you want to go.

Janpath, running off Connaught Place to the south, has the Government of India tourist office, the Student travel information Centre in the Imperial Hotel and a number of other useful addresses.

South of the New Delhi government areas are Delhi's more expensive residential areas, with names like Defence Colony, South Extension, Lodi Colony, Greater Kailash and Vasant Vihar. Many of the better (and more expensive) cinemas and shopping centres are found here. The Indira Gandhi International Airport is to the South-West of the city, and Connaught Place is Chanakyapuri, the diplomatic enclave. Most of Delhi's embassies (and the Prime Minister's House) are concentrated in this strikingly tidy area and there are several major hotels here.

The west bank of Yamuna River is divided basically into two parts - the tightly packed streets of Old Delhi and the spacious, planned areas of New Delhi