There is a reference to a settlement called Indraprastha in the great epic poem Mahabharata. Archaeologists believe that this settlement was located in the Delhi area at the village of Indapat.
Excavations in the Old Fort have revealed that a settlement existed there before 2000 B.C. and that people lived there continuously until about A.D. 1000. In the 1100's, Prithviraja III of the Chauhan dynasty made Delhi his capital, only to be displaced by the Muslim conqueror Qutb-ud-Din Aibak. The city was the first of at least seven to be built in the Delhi Triangle.

Successive Turkish and Afghan dynasties built cities on different sites in the Delhi area between 1193 and 1354. The devastating invasion of Tamerlane in 1389-1398 caused the capital to be shifted to Agra. But Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty and empire, shifted the capital back to Delhi in 1526. His son, Humayun, built another city, which was destroyed in 1540 by the invader Sher Shah.

The Mughal emperor Akbar kept court at Fatehpur Sikri. His successor, Jahangir, was based in Agra. But in 1638 Shah Jahan commenced the building of the seventh city-Shahjahanabad-now known as Old Delhi. The city once more became the capital. Later, as Mughal power weakened, Delhi was repeatedly raided and robbed of its treasures.
The most terrible attack was the invasion of the Persian Nadir Shah in 1739. The British took possession of the city in 1803 but did not immediately make it their capital. Calcutta, the gateway to the earliest British conquests, remained the capital of British India.

During the Indian Revolt of 1857, Indian soldiers held Delhi for five months. The British recapture of the city involved fierce fighting and much destruction. In 1877, the British authorities announced at Delhi the proclamation of Queen Victoria as empress of India.
In 1911, Delhi was the setting for a glittering spectacle called a durbar, or royal gathering, at which the 562 princes of India met to pay their respects to George V, the only king-emperor ever to visit the country. The royal visitor chose the occasion to announce that the capital was to move from Calcutta to Delhi. The formal move took place in 1912. In the same year, work began on planning and building New Delhi to house the new seat of government.

New Delhi was intended to be the British imperial equivalent of Rome, imposing, and capable of expanding to something even greater. About 30,000 labourers were needed just to put up the official buildings and plant 10,000 trees. When India became independent in 1947, New Delhi became its capital.