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New Delhi

New Delhi (,, ISO: Naī Dillī), is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Sansad Bhavan, and the Supreme Court. New Delhi is a municipality within the NCT, administered by the NDMC, which covers mostly Lutyens' Delhi and a few adjacent areas. The municipal area is part of a larger administrative district, the New Delhi district.

Although colloquially Delhi and New Delhi are used interchangeably to refer to the National Capital Territory of Delhi, both are distinct entities, with the municipality and the New Delhi district forming a relatively small part within the megacity of Delhi. The National Capital Region is an even larger entity, comprising the entire NCT along with adjoining districts in the two neighbouring states forming a continuously built-up area with it, including Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Meerut, YEIDA City, Gurgaon, and Faridabad.

The foundation stone of New Delhi, south of central Delhi, was laid by George V during the Delhi Durbar of 1911. It was designed by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. The new capital was inaugurated on 13 February 1931, by Viceroy and Governor-General Irwin.

Establishment
Until December 1911, Calcutta was the capital of India during the British Rule. However, it had become the centre of the nationalist movements since the late nineteenth century, which led to the Partition of Bengal by Viceroy Lord Curzon. This created massive political and religious upsurge including political assassinations of British officials in Calcutta. The anti-colonial sentiments among the public led to a complete boycott of British goods, which forced the colonial government to reunite Bengal and immediately shift the capital to New Delhi.

Old Delhi had served as the political and financial centre of several empires of medieval India and the Delhi Sultanate, most notably of the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857. During the early 1900s, a proposal was made to the British administration to shift the capital of the British Indian Empire, as India was officially named, from Calcutta on the east coast, to Delhi. The Government of British India felt that it would be logistically easier to administer India from Delhi, which is in the centre of northern India. The land for building the new city of Delhi was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act 1894.

During the Delhi Durbar on 12 December 1911, George V, Emperor of India, while laying the foundation stone for the viceroy's residence in the Coronation Park, Kingsway Camp, declared that the capital of the Raj would be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. Three days later, George V and his consort, Queen Mary, laid the foundation stone of New Delhi at Kingsway Camp. Large parts of New Delhi were planned by Edwin Lutyens, who first visited Delhi in 1912, and Herbert Baker, both leading 20th-century British architects. The contract was given to Sobha Singh. The original plan called for its construction in Tughlaqabad, inside the Tughlaqabad Fort, but this was given up because of the Delhi-Calcutta trunk line that passed through the fort. Construction really began after World War I and was completed by 1931. The gardening and planning of plantations was led by A.E.P. Griessen, and later William Mustoe. The city that was later dubbed "Lutyens' Delhi" was inaugurated in ceremonies beginning on 10 February 1931 by Viceroy Lord Irwin. Lutyens designed the central administrative area of the city as a testament to Britain's imperial aspirations. Soon Lutyens started considering other places. Indeed, the Delhi Town Planning Committee, set up to plan the new imperial capital, with George Swinton as chairman, and John A. Brodie and Lutyens as members, submitted reports for both north and south sites. However, it was rejected by the Viceroy when the cost of acquiring the necessary properties was found to be too high. The central axis of New Delhi, which today faces east at India Gate, was previously meant to be a north–south axis linking the Viceroy's House at one end with Paharganj at the other. Eventually, owing to space constraints and the presence of a large number of heritage sites on the north side, the committee settled on the south site. A site atop the Raisina Hill, formerly Raisina Village, a Meo village, was chosen for the Rashtrapati Bhawan, then known as the Viceroy's House. The reason for this choice was that the hill lay directly opposite the Dinapanah citadel, which was also considered the site of Indraprastha, the ancient region of Delhi. Subsequently, the foundation stone was shifted from the site of Delhi Durbar of 1911–1912, where the Coronation Pillar stood, and embedded in the walls of the forecourt of the Secretariat. The Rajpath, also known as King's Way, stretched from the India Gate to the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The Secretariat building, the two blocks of which flank the Rashtrapati Bhawan and houses ministries of the government of India, and the Parliament House, both designed by Baker, are located at the Sansad Marg and run parallel to the Rajpath.

In the south, land up to Safdarjung's Tomb was acquired to create what is today known as Lutyens' Bungalow Zone. Before construction could begin on the rocky ridge of Raisina Hill, a circular railway line around the Council House (now Parliament House), called the Imperial Delhi Railway, was built to transport construction material and workers for the next twenty years. The last stumbling block was the Agra-Delhi railway line that cut right through the site earmarked for the hexagonal All-India War Memorial (India Gate) and Kingsway (Rajpath), which was a problem because the Old Delhi Railway Station served the entire city at that time. The line was shifted to run along the Yamuna River, and it began operating in 1924. The New Delhi Railway Station opened in 1926, with a single platform at Ajmeri Gate near Paharganj, and was completed in time for the city's inauguration in 1931. As construction of the Viceroy's House (the present Rashtrapati Bhavan), Central Secretariat, Parliament House, and All-India War Memorial (India Gate) was winding down, the building of a shopping district and a new plaza, Connaught Place, began in 1929, and was completed by 1933. Named after Prince Arthur, 1st Duke of Connaught (1850–1942), it was designed by Robert Tor Russell, chief architect to the Public Works Department (PWD).

After the capital of India moved to Delhi, a temporary secretariat building was constructed in a few months in 1912 in North Delhi. Most of the government offices of the new capital moved here from the 'Old secretariat' in Old Delhi (the building now houses the Delhi Legislative Assembly), a decade before the new capital was inaugurated in 1931. Many employees were brought into the new capital from distant parts of India, including the Bengal Presidency and Madras Presidency. Subsequently, housing for them has developed around Gole Market area in the 1920s. Built in the 1940s, to house government employees, with bungalows for senior officials in the nearby Lodhi Estate area, Lodhi colony near historic Lodhi Gardens, was the last residential areas built by the British Raj.

Post-independence
After India gained independence in 1947, limited autonomy was conferred to New Delhi and was administered by a Chief Commissioner appointed by the Government of India. In 1966, Delhi was converted into a union territory and eventually the Chief Commissioner was replaced by a Lieutenant Governor. The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 declared the Union Territory of Delhi to be formally known as National Capital Territory of Delhi. A system was introduced under which the elected government was given wide powers, excluding law and order which remained with the Central Government. The actual enforcement of the legislation came in 1993.

The first major extension of New Delhi outside of Lutyens' Delhi came in the 1950s when the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) developed a large area of land southwest of Lutyens' Delhi to create the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri, where land was allotted for embassies, chanceries, high commissions and residences of ambassadors, around a wide central vista, Shanti Path.

Geography
With a total area of 42.7 sqkm, the municipality of New Delhi forms a small part of the Delhi metropolitan area. Since the city is located on the Indo-Gangetic Plain, there is little difference in elevation across the city. New Delhi and surrounding areas were once a part of the Aravali Range; all that is left of those mountains is the Delhi Ridge, which is also called the Lungs of Delhi. While New Delhi lies on the floodplains of the Yamuna River, it is essentially a landlocked city. East of the river is the urban area of Shahdara.

Seismology
New Delhi falls under the seismic zone-IV, making it vulnerable to earthquakes. It lies on several fault lines and thus experiences frequent earthquakes, most of them of mild intensity. There was a spike in the number of earthquakes between 2011 and 2015, most notable being a 5.4 magnitude earthquake in 2015 with its epicentre in Nepal, a 4.7-magnitude earthquake on 25 November 2007, a 4.2-magnitude earthquake on 7 September 2011, a 5.2-magnitude earthquake on 5 March 2012, and a swarm of twelve earthquakes, including four of magnitudes 2.5, 2.8, 3.1, and 3.3, on 12 November 2013.

Climate
The climate of New Delhi is a dry-winter humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa) bordering on a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh) with high variation between summer and winter in terms of both temperature and rainfall. The temperature varies from 46 °C in summers to around 10 °C in winters. The area's version of a humid subtropical climate is noticeably different from many other cities with this climate classification in that it features long and extremely hot summers with dust storms, relatively dry and mild winters with wildfire haze, and a monsoonal period. Summers are long, extending from early April to October, with the monsoon season occurring in the middle of the summer. Winter starts in November and peaks in January. Winters are very mild. The annual mean temperature is around 25 °C; monthly daily mean temperatures range from approximately 13 to 34 °C. New Delhi's highest temperature ever recorded is 49.9 °C on 28 May 2024 at Met Delhi Mungeshpur while the lowest temperature ever recorded is -2.2 °C on 11 January 1967 at Indira Gandhi International Airport (formerly known as Palam Airport). The average annual rainfall is 774.4 mm and monsoon rainfall from June to September is about 640.4 mm, most of which is during the monsoons in July and August.

Air quality
In Mercer's 2015 annual quality-of-living survey, New Delhi ranks at number 154 out of 230 cities due to bad air quality and pollution. The World Health Organization ranked New Delhi as the world's worst polluted city in 2014 among about 1,600 cities the organisation tracked around the world. In 2016, United States Environmental Protection Agency listed New Delhi as the most polluted city on Earth and IQAir listed New Delhi as the world's most polluted capital city for the second straight year in year 2019.

In an attempt to lessen air pollution in New Delhi, which gets worse during the winter, a temporary alternate-day travel scheme for cars using the odd- and even-numbered licence plates system was announced by Delhi government in December 2015. In addition, trucks were to be allowed to enter India's capital only after 11 pm, two hours later than the existing restriction. The driving restriction scheme was planned to be implemented as a trial from 1 January 2016 for an initial period of 15 days. The restriction was in force between 8 am and 8 pm, and traffic was not restricted on Sundays. Public transportation service was increased during the restriction period.

On 16 December 2015, the Supreme Court of India mandated several restrictions on Delhi's transportation system to curb pollution. Among the measures, the court ordered to stop registrations of diesel cars and sport utility vehicles with an engine capacity of 2,000 cc and over until 31 March 2016. The court also ordered all taxis in the Delhi region to switch to compressed natural gas by 1 March 2016. Transportation vehicles that are more than 10 years old were banned from entering the capital.

Analysing real-time vehicle speed data from Uber Delhi revealed that during the odd-even program, average speeds went up by a statistically significant 5.4 per cent (2.8 standard deviation from normal). This means vehicles have lesser idling time in traffic and vehicle engines would run closer to minimum fuel consumption. In bordering areas, PM 2.5 levels were recorded more than 400 (ug/m3) while in inner areas in Delhi, they were recorded between 150 and 210 on an average. However, the subcity of Dwarka, located in the southwest district, has a substantially low level of air pollution. At the NSIT University campus, located in sector 3 Dwarka, pollution levels were as low as 93 PPM.

On 7 November 2017, the Indian Medical Association declared a public health emergency due to high pollution levels. The highest being in the Punjabi Bagh district with an air quality index of 999 and in the RK Puram district with an index of 852. The lowest index recorded was in the Anand Vihar district with an index of 319. Levels of PM2.5 were recorded at 710 μg/m3, more than 11 times the World Health Organization's safe limit.

In a 2018 study, New Delhi was found to be the most polluted capital out of 61 capital cities around the world. In December 2019, IIT Bombay, in partnership with the McKelvey School of Engineering of Washington University in St. Louis, launched the Aerosol and Air Quality Research Facility to study air pollution in New Delhi, among other Indian cities. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in India, the water quality of the Yamuna and Ganges river basins have improved as industries are closed due to the lockdown. The air quality has also significantly improved during the lockdown. On 5 November 2020, New Delhi recorded its most toxic day in a year, as the concentration of poisonous PM2.5 particles was recorded at 14 times the WHO's safe limit.

[[File:2015 Air pollution in New Delhi (AQI).svg|thumb|upright=4.1|centre|2015 Air pollution in New Delhi (PM2.5 AQI)

{{legend|#7e0023| Hazardous }} {{legend|#9900ac| Very Unhealthy }} {{legend|#ff0000| Unhealthy}}

{{legend|#ff7e00| Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups}} {{legend|#ffff00| Moderate }} {{legend|#00e400| Good}}

]]

Demographics
As of 2011, the New Delhi Municipal Council area has a population of 249,998. Hindi is the most widely spoken language in New Delhi and the lingua franca of the city. English is primarily used as the formal language by business and government institutes. New Delhi has a literacy rate of 89.38% according to 2011 census, which is the highest in Delhi.

Religion
According to 2011 census, Hinduism is the religion of 89.8% of New Delhi's population. There are also communities of Muslims (4.5%), Christians (2.9%), Sikhs (2.0%), Jains (0.4%). Other religious groups include Parsis, Buddhists, and Jews.

Government
The national capital of India, New Delhi is jointly administered by both the Central Government of India and the local Government of Delhi, it is also the capital of the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. New Delhi is administered through a municipal government, known as the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). The other urban areas of the metropolis of Delhi are administered by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Delhi Cantonment Board. , the government structure of the New Delhi Municipal Council includes a chairperson, three members of New Delhi's Legislative Assembly, two members nominated by the Chief Minister of the NCT of Delhi and five members nominated by the central government.

The districts of the NCT were redrawn in 2012 and include a district called New Delhi, albeit with different borders than the municipality. The New Delhi district includes not only the area of the municipality of the same name, but also encompasses the Delhi Cantonment and parts of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi area.

Economy

New Delhi is the largest commercial city in northern India. It has an estimated net State Domestic Product (FY 2010) of inr 1595000000000 in nominal terms and ~inr 6800000000000 in PPP terms. , the per capita income of Delhi was Rs. 230000, second highest in India after Goa. GSDP in Delhi at the prices for 2012–13 is estimated at Rs 3.88 trillion (short scale) against Rs 3.11 trillion (short scale) in 2011–12.

Connaught Place, one of North India's largest commercial and financial centres, is located in the northern part of New Delhi. Adjoining areas such as Barakhamba Road, ITO are also major commercial centres. Government and quasi-government sector was the primary employer in New Delhi. The city's service sector has expanded due in part to the large skilled English-speaking workforce that has attracted many multinational companies. Key service industries include information technology, telecommunications, hotels, banking, media, and tourism.

The 2011 World Wealth Report ranks economic activity in New Delhi at 39, but overall the capital is ranked at 37, above cities like Jakarta and Johannesburg. New Delhi, with Beijing, shares the top position as the most targeted emerging markets retail destination among Asia-Pacific markets.

The government of National Capital Territory of Delhi does not release any economic figures specifically for New Delhi but publishes an official economic report on the whole of Delhi annually. According to the Economic Survey of Delhi, the metropolis has a net State Domestic Product (SDP) of Rs. 830.85 billion (for the year 2004–05) and a per capita income of Rs. 53,976 ($1,200). In the year 2008–09 New Delhi had a per capita Income of Rs. 116,886 ($2,595). It grew by 16.2% to reach Rs. 135,814 ($3,018) in 2009–10 fiscal. New Delhi's per capita GDP (at PPP) was at $6,860 during 2009–10 fiscal, making it one of the richest cities in India. The tertiary sector contributes 78.4% of Delhi's gross SDP followed by secondary and primary sectors with 20.2% and 1.4% contribution respectively.

The gross state domestic product (GSDP) of Delhi at prices for the year 2011–12 has been estimated at Rs 3.13 trillion (short scale), which is an increase of 18.7 per cent over the previous fiscal.

Culture
New Delhi is a cosmopolitan city due to the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural presence of the vast Indian bureaucracy and political system. The city's capital status has amplified the importance of national events and holidays. National events such as Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti (Gandhi's birthday) are celebrated with great enthusiasm in New Delhi and the rest of India. On India's Independence Day (15 August), the prime minister of India addresses the nation from the Red Fort. Most Delhiites celebrate the day by flying kites, which are considered a symbol of freedom. The Republic Day Parade is a large cultural and military parade showcasing India's cultural diversity and military might.

Religious festivals include Diwali (the festival of light), Maha Shivaratri, Teej, Durga Puja, Mahavir Jayanti, Guru Nanak Jayanti, Holi, Lohri, Eid ul-Fitr, Eid ul-Adha, Easter, Raksha Bandhan, and Christmas. The Qutub Festival is a cultural event during which performances of musicians and dancers from all over India are showcased at night, with the Qutub Minar as the chosen backdrop of the event. Other events such as Kite Flying Festival, International Mango Festival and Vasant Panchami (the Spring Festival) are held every year in Delhi.

In 2007, the Japanese Buddhist organisation Nipponzan Myohoji decided to build a Peace Pagoda in the city containing Buddha relics. It was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama.

Historic sites, museums and gardens
New Delhi is home to several historic sites and museums. The National Museum, which began with an exhibition of Indian art and artefacts at the Royal Academy in London in the winter of 1947–48, was later at the end was shown at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 1949. Later it was to form a permanent National Museum. On 15 August 1949, the National Museum was formally inaugurated and has 200,000 works of art, both of Indian and foreign origin, covering over 5,000 years.

The India Gate, which was built in 1931, was inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It is the national monument of India commemorating the 90,000 soldiers of the Indian Army who died while fighting for the British Raj in World War I and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. The monument is barricaded now with entry to inside arch restricted.

The Rajpath, which was built similar to the Champs-Élysées in Paris, is the ceremonial boulevard for the Republic of India, located in New Delhi. The annual Republic Day parade takes place here on 26 January. The Beating retreat takes place here two days later.

Gandhi Smriti in New Delhi is the location where Mahatma Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life and was assassinated on 30 January 1948. Rajghat is the place where Gandhi was cremated on 31 January 1948 after his assassination and his ashes were buried and make it a final resting place beside the sanctity of the Yamuna River. The Raj Ghat in the shape of large square platform with black marble was designed by architect Vanu Bhuta.

Jantar Mantar located in Connaught Place was built by Maharaja Jai Singh II of Jaipur. It consists of 13 architectural astronomy instruments. The primary purpose of the observatory was to compile astronomical tables, and to predict the times and movements of the sun, moon and planets.

New Delhi is home to Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art, National Museum of Natural History, National Rail Museum, National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum, National Philatelic Museum, Nehru Planetarium, Shankar's International Dolls Museum. and Supreme Court of India Museum,

In the coming years, a new National War Memorial and Museum will be constructed in New Delhi for inr 4000000000.

New Delhi is particularly renowned for its beautifully landscaped gardens that can look quite stunning in spring. The largest of these include Buddha Jayanti Park and the historic Lodi Gardens. In addition, there are the gardens in the Presidential Estate, the gardens along the Rajpath and India Gate, the gardens along Shanti Path, the Rose Garden, Nehru Park and the Railway Garden in Chanakya Puri. Also of note is the garden adjacent to the Jangpura Metro Station near the Defence Colony Flyover, as are the roundabout and neighbourhood gardens throughout the city.

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area was declared the cleanest in North India, based on solid waste management, access to sanitation and other parameters of cleanliness, under the zone-wise Swachh Survekshan 2017.

Cityscape
Much of New Delhi, planned by the leading 20th-century British architect Edwin Lutyens, was laid out to be the central administrative area of the city as a testament to Britain's imperial ambitions. New Delhi is structured around two central promenades called the Rajpath and the Janpath. The Rajpath, or King's Way, stretches from the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the India Gate. The Janpath (राजपथ), formerly Queen's Way, begins at Connaught Circus and cuts the Rajpath at right angles. Nineteen foreign embassies are located on the nearby Shantipath (शांतिपथ), making it the largest diplomatic enclave in India.

At the heart of the city is the magnificent Rashtrapati Bhavan (formerly known as Viceroy's House) which sits atop Raisina Hill. The Secretariat, which houses ministries of the government of India, flanks out of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Parliament House, designed by Herbert Baker, is located at the Sansad Marg, which runs parallel to the Rajpath. Connaught Place is a large, circular commercial area in New Delhi, modelled after the Royal Crescent in England. Twelve separate roads lead out of the outer ring of Connaught Place, one of them being the Janpath.

Architecture
The New Delhi town plan, like its architecture, was chosen with one single chief consideration: to be a symbol of British power and supremacy. All other decisions were subordinate to this, and it was this framework that dictated the choice and application of symbology and influences from both Hindu and Islamic architecture.

It took about 20 years to build the city from 1911. Many elements of New Delhi architecture borrow from indigenous sources; however, they fit into a British Classical/Palladian tradition. The fact that there were any indigenous features in the design were due to the persistence and urging of both the Viceroy Lord Hardinge and historians like E.B. Havell.

In the year 2019, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and Government of India introduced the Central Vista redevelopment project proposing the redevelopment of over 440 ha, costing inr 200000000000.

Air
Indira Gandhi International Airport, situated to the southwest of Delhi, is the main gateway for the city's domestic and international civilian air traffic. In 2012–13, the airport was used by more than 35 million passengers, making it one of the busiest airports in South Asia. Terminal 3, which cost inr 96800000000 to construct between 2007 and 2010, handles an additional 37 million passengers annually.

The Delhi Flying Club, established in 1928 with two de Havilland Moth aircraft named Delhi and Roshanara, was based at Safdarjung Airport which started operations in 1929, when it was the Delhi's only airport and the second in India. The airport functioned until 2001; however, in January 2002 the government closed the airport for flying activities because of security concerns following the New York attacks in September 2001. Since then, the club only carries out aircraft maintenance courses, and is used for helicopter rides to Indira Gandhi International Airport for VIP including the president and the prime minister.

In 2010, Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) was conferred the fourth best airport award in the world in the 15–25 million category, and Best Improved Airport in the Asia-Pacific Region by Airports Council International. The airport was rated as the Best airport in the world in the 25–40 million passengers category in 2015, by Airports Council International. Delhi Airport also bags two awards for The Best Airport in Central Asia/India and Best Airport Staff in Central Asia/India at the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2015.

Road
New Delhi has one of India's largest bus transport systems. Buses are operated by the state-owned Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), which owns the largest fleet of compressed natural gas (CNG)-fueled buses in the world and Delhi Transit. Personal vehicles especially cars also form a major chunk of vehicles plying on New Delhi roads. New Delhi has the highest number of registered cars compared to any other metropolitan city in India. Taxis and Auto Rickshaws also ply on New Delhi roads in large numbers. New Delhi has one of the highest road density in India and average vehicle speed is around 15–20 km/h in peak hours in the city.

Some roads and expressways serve as important pillars of New Delhi's road infrastructure:
 * Inner Ring Road is one of the most important "state highways" in New Delhi. It is a 51 km long circular road, which connects important areas in New Delhi. Owing to more than 2 dozen grade-separators/flyovers, the road is almost signal-free.
 * Outer Ring Road is another major artery in New Delhi that links far-flung areas of Delhi.
 * The Delhi Noida Direct Flyway (DND Flyway) is an eight-laned access controlled tolled expressway which connects New Delhi and Delhi to Noida (an important satellite city of Uttar Pradesh). The acronym DND stands for "Delhi-Noida Direct".
 * 'The Delhi Gurgaon Expressway is a 28 km expressway connecting New Delhi to Gurgaon, an important satellite city of Haryana.
 * The Delhi Faridabad Skyway is controlled tolled expressway which connects New Delhi to Faridabad, an important satellite city of Haryana.

National Highways
New Delhi is connected by road to the rest of India through National highways:
 * National Highway 19 (India) (old number: NH 2), commonly referred as Delhi-Kolkata Road is a busy Indian National Highway that runs through the states of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.
 * National Highway 44 (India) is a National Highway that connects Srinagar with Kanyakumari and passes through Delhi.
 * National Highway 48 (India) is a National Highway that connects New Delhi with Chennai.
 * National Highway 9 (India) is a National Highway that connects Malout in Punjab to Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand and passes through Delhi.

Railway
New Delhi is a major junction in the Indian railway network and is the headquarters of the Northern Railway. The five main railway stations are New Delhi railway station, Delhi Junction, Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station, Anand Vihar Terminal and Sarai Rohilla. The Delhi Ring Railway, a 35 km circular railway network in Delhi that runs parallel to the Ring Road, is a part of Delhi's suburban railway services.

Metro
The Delhi Metro is a rapid transit system serving Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Noida in the National Capital Region of India. Delhi Metro is the world's 12th largest metro system in terms of length. Delhi Metro was India's first modern public transportation system, which had revolutionised travel by providing a fast, reliable, safe, and comfortable means of transport. Presently, the network consists of 10 colour-coded lines serving 255 stations with a total length of 348.12 km. The network has now crossed the boundaries of Delhi to reach Ghaziabad and Noida in Uttar Pradesh, and Faridabad and Gurgaon in Haryana. All stations have escalators, elevators, and tactile tiles to guide the visually impaired from station entrances to trains. It has a combination of elevated, at-grade, and underground lines, and uses both broad gauge and standard gauge rolling stock. Four types of rolling stock are used: Mitsubishi-ROTEM Broad gauge, Bombardier MOVIA, Mitsubishi-ROTEM Standard gauge, and CAF Beasain Standard gauge. According to a study, Delhi Metro has helped in removing about 390,000 vehicles from the streets of Delhi.

Delhi Metro is being built and operated by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC), a state-owned company with equal equity participation from Government of India and Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi. However, the organisation is under administrative control of Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. Besides construction and operation of Delhi metro, DMRC is also involved in the planning and implementation of metro rail, monorail and high-speed rail projects in India and providing consultancy services to other metro projects in the country as well as abroad. The Delhi Metro project was spearheaded by E. Sreedharan, the managing director of DMRC and popularly known as the "Metro Man" of India. He famously resigned from DMRC, taking moral responsibility for a metro bridge collapse which took five lives. Sreedharan was awarded with the Legion of Honour by the French government for his contribution to Delhi Metro.

Schools

 * DAV Public School (at multiple areas)
 * Delhi Public School (at multiple areas)
 * Guru Amar Dass Public School
 * St. Mark's Senior Secondary Public School
 * St. Xavier's School (at multiple areas)
 * The British School
 * Union Academy Senior Secondary School

Colleges

 * Delhi College of Arts and Commerce
 * Hindu College, Delhi
 * Indian Institute of Mass Communication
 * Indian Statistical Institute
 * Institute of Information Technology and Management (IITM) (at multiple areas)
 * Management Education & Research Institute (MERI)
 * Pannalal Girdharlal Dayanand Anglo Vedic College (PGDAV College)
 * Ramanujan College
 * Shaheed Bhagat Singh College

Universities

 * All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi
 * Association of Indian Universities
 * Delhi School of Economics
 * Delhi School of Management
 * Delhi School of Music
 * Indian Agricultural Research Institute
 * Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
 * Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
 * Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women
 * Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)
 * Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology
 * Jamia Hamdard University
 * Jamia Millia Islamia University
 * Jawaharlal Nehru University
 * National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA)
 * National Institute of Technology Delhi
 * National Law University
 * Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University
 * South Asian University
 * TERI School of Advanced Studies
 * University of Delhi

Sports

The city hosted the 2010 Commonwealth Games and annually hosts Delhi Half Marathon foot-race. The city has previously hosted the 1951 Asian Games and the 1982 Asian Games. New Delhi was interested in bidding for the 2019 Asian Games but was turned down by the government on 2 August 2010 amid allegations of corruption in 2010 Commonwealth Games. The city also had a bid to host the 1992 Summer Olympics, but withdrew in March 1986, seven months before the host selection.

Major sporting venues in New Delhi include the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Ambedkar Stadium, Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Arun Jaitley Stadium, R.K. Khanna Tennis Complex, Dhyan Chand National Stadium and Siri Fort Sports Complex.

International relations and organisations
The city is home to numerous international organisations. The Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology of the UNESCAP servicing the Asia-Pacific region is headquartered in New Delhi. New Delhi is home to most UN regional offices in India namely the UNDP, UNODC, UNESCO, UNICEF, WFP, UNV, UNCTAD, FAO, UNFPA, WHO, World Bank, ILO, IMF, UNIFEM, IFC and UNAIDS. UNHCR Representation in India is also located in the city.

New Delhi hosts 145 foreign embassies and high commissions.

Summits, conferences and conventions
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development hosted its second meeting conference in the year 1968 at New Delhi.

New Delhi hosted the 7th NAM Summit in 1983, 4th BRICS Summit in 2012, IBSA Summit in 2015, and 5th Global Conference on CyberSpace in 2017. India has also host the G20 summit in 2023 in New Delhi.

Sister cities

 * Moscow, Russia
 * Beijing, China (2013)

title: New Delhi


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Sevastopol

Sevastopol, sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base throughout its history. Since the city's founding in 1783 it has been a major base for Russia's Black Sea Fleet. During the Cold War of the 20th century, it was a closed city. The total administrative area is 864 km2 and includes a significant amount of rural land. The urban population, largely concentrated around Sevastopol Bay, is 479,394, and the total population is 547,820.

Sevastopol, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, and under the Ukrainian legal framework, it is administratively one of two cities with special status (the other being Kyiv). However, it has been occupied by Russia since 27 February 2014, before Russia annexed Crimea on 18 March 2014 and gave it the status of a federal city of Russia. Both Ukraine and Russia consider the city administratively separate from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Republic of Crimea, respectively. The city's population has an ethnic Russian majority and a substantial minority of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars.

Sevastopol's unique naval and maritime features have been the basis for a robust economy. The city enjoys mild winters and moderately warm summers, characteristics that help make it a popular seaside resort and tourist destination, mainly for visitors from the former Soviet republics. The city is also an important centre for marine biology research. In particular, the military has studied and trained dolphins in the city for military use since the 1960s.

Etymology
The name of Sevastopolis was originally chosen following the same etymological trend as other cities in the Crimean peninsula; it was intended to express its ancient Greek origins. It is a compound of the Greek adjective, σεβαστός (sebastós, ; 'venerable') and the noun πόλις (pólis, 'city'). Σεβαστός is the traditional Greek equivalent (see Sebastian) of the Roman honorific Augustus, originally given to the first emperor of the Roman Empire, Augustus and later awarded as a title to his successors.

The city was probably named after Empress ("Augusta") Catherine II of the Russian Empire who founded Sevastopol in 1783. She visited the city in 1787, accompanied by Joseph II, the Emperor of Austria, and other foreign dignitaries.

In the west of the city, there are well-preserved ruins of the ancient Greek port city of Chersonesos, founded in the 5th century BC by settlers from Heraclea Pontica. This name means "peninsula", reflecting its immediate location. It is not related to the ancient Greek name for the Crimean Peninsula as a whole: Chersonēsos Taurikē ("the Taurian Peninsula").

The name of the city is spelled as:
 * English: Sevastopol, the current prevalent spelling; the previously common spelling Sebastopol is still used by some publications, and formerly by The Economist. The current spelling has the pronunciation,  while the former spelling has the pronunciation.
 * Севасто́поль,, or Sivastopol; Севасто́поль,.

Ancient Chersonesus
In the 6th century BC, a Greek colony was established in the area of the modern-day city. The Greek city of Chersonesus existed for almost two thousand years, first as an independent democracy and later as part of the Bosporan Kingdom. In the 13th and 14th centuries, it was sacked by the Golden Horde several times and was finally totally abandoned. The modern day city of Sevastopol has no connection to the ancient and medieval Greek city other than geographical location, but the ruins are a popular tourist attraction located on the outskirts of the city.

Part of the Russian Empire
Sevastopol was founded in June 1783 as a base for a naval squadron under the name Akhtiar (White Cliff), by Rear Admiral Thomas MacKenzie (Foma Fomich Makenzi), a native Scot in Russian service; soon after Russia annexed the Crimean Khanate. Five years earlier, Alexander Suvorov ordered that earthworks be erected along the harbour and Russian troops be placed there.

In February 1784, Catherine the Great ordered Grigory Potemkin to build a fortress there and call it Sevastopol. The realisation of the initial building plans fell to Captain Fyodor Ushakov who in 1788 was named commander of the port and of the Black Sea squadron. The city was established on the western shore of Southern Bay which branches away from the bigger Sevastopol Bay. The ruins of ancient Chersonesus were situated to the west. The newly built settlement became an important naval base and later a commercial seaport. In 1797, under an edict issued by Emperor Paul I, the military stronghold was again renamed Akhtiar. Finally, on 29 April (10 May), 1826, the Senate returned the city's name to Sevastopol. In 1803 to 1864 along with Mykolaiv the city was part of Nikolayev–Sevastopol Military Governorate.

Crimean War
From 1853 to 1856, the Crimean peninsula's strategic position in controlling the Black Sea caused it to be the site of the principal engagements of the Crimean War, where Russia lost to a French-led alliance.

After a minor skirmish at Köstence (now Constanța), the allied commanders decided to attack Sevastopol as Russia's main naval base in the Black Sea. After extended preparations, allied forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and marched to a point south of Sevastopol after winning the Battle of the Alma on 20 September. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, but the British Army's forces were seriously depleted as a result. A second Russian counterattack, at Inkerman in November, ended in a stalemate as well. The front settled into the siege of Sevastopol, involving brutal conditions for troops on both sides.

Sevastopol finally fell after eleven months, after the French had assaulted Fort Malakoff. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion by the West if the war continued, Russia sued for peace in March 1856. France and Britain welcomed the development, owing to the conflict's domestic unpopularity. The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, ended the war and forbade Russia from basing warships in the Black Sea. This hampered the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 and in the aftermath of that conflict, Russia moved to reconstitute its naval strength and fortifications in the Black Sea.

World War II
During World War II, Sevastopol withstood intensive bombardment by the Germans in 1941–42, supported by their Italian and Romanian allies during the Battle of Sevastopol. German forces used railway artillery—including history's largest-ever calibre railway artillery piece in battle, the 80-cm calibre Schwerer Gustav—and specialised mobile heavy mortars to destroy Sevastopol's extremely heavy fortifications, such as the Maxim Gorky Fortresses. After fierce fighting, which lasted for 250 days,  the fortress city finally fell to Axis forces in July 1942. It was intended to be renamed to "Theodorichshafen" (in reference to Theodoric the Great and the fact that Crimea had been home to Germanic Goths until the 18th or 19th century) in the event of a German victory against the Soviet Union, and like the rest of Crimea was designated for future colonisation by the Third Reich. It was liberated by the Red Army on 9 May 1944 and was awarded the Hero City title a year later.

Part of the Ukrainian SSR
During the Soviet era, Sevastopol became a so-called "closed city". This meant that any non-residents had to apply to the authorities for a temporary permit to visit the city.

On 29 October 1948, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Russian SFSR issued an ukaz (order) which confirmed the special status of the city. Soviet academic publications since 1954, including the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, indicated that Sevastopol, Crimean Oblast was part of the Ukrainian SSR.

In 1954, under Nikita Khrushchev, both Sevastopol and the remainder of the Crimean peninsula were administratively transferred from being territories within the Russian SFSR to being territories administered by the Ukrainian SSR. Administratively, Sevastopol was a municipality excluded from the adjacent Crimean Oblast. The territory of the municipality was 863.5 km2 and it was further subdivided into four raions (districts). Besides the City of Sevastopol proper, it also included two towns—Balaklava (having had no status until 1957), Inkerman, urban-type settlement Kacha, and 29 villages.

For the 1955 Ukrainian parliamentary elections on 27 February, Sevastopol was split into two electoral districts, Stalinsky and Korabelny (initially requested three Stalinsky, Korabelny, and Nakhimovsky). Eventually, Sevastopol received two people's deputies of the Ukrainian SSR elected to the Verkhovna Rada, A. Korovchenko and M. Kulakov.

In 1957, the town of Balaklava was incorporated into Sevastopol.

Part of Ukraine

Following Ukraine's declaration of independence from the USSR in 1991, Sevastopol became the principal base of the Ukrainian navy. As the key naval base of the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet, it was a source of tensions for Russia–Ukraine relations until a set-term lease agreement was signed in 1997.

On 10 July 1993, the Russian parliament passed a resolution declaring Sevastopol to be "a federal Russian city". At the time, many supporters of President Boris Yeltsin had ceased taking part in the parliament's work. On 20 July 1993, the United Nations Security Council denounced the decision of the Russian parliament. According to Anatoliy Zlenko, it was the first time that the council had to review and qualify actions of a legislative body.

On 14 April 1993, the Presidium of the Crimean Parliament called for the creation of the presidential post of the Crimean Republic. A week later, the Russian deputy, Valentin Agafonov, said that Russia was ready to supervise a referendum on Crimean independence and include the republic as a separate entity in the CIS. On 28 July 1993, one of the leaders of the Russian Society of Crimea, Viktor Prusakov, said that his organisation was ready for an armed mutiny and the establishment of Russian administration of Sevastopol.

In September, the commander of the joint Russian-Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet, Eduard Baltin, accused Ukraine of converting some of his fleet and conducting an armed assault on his personnel and threatened to take countermeasures placing the fleet on alert. (In June 1992, the Russian president Yeltsin and the Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk had agreed to divide the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet between Russia and Ukraine. Eduard Baltin had been appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet by Yeltsin and Kravchuk on 15 January 1993.)

The Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov to claim the city, and in December 1996, the Russian Federation Council officially endorsed the claim, threatening negotiations. In response, Ukraine proposed a "special partnership" with NATO in January 1997.

In May 1997, Russia and Ukraine signed the Russian–Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, ruling out Moscow's territorial claims to Ukraine. This was followed by the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet on 28 May 1997. A separate agreement established the terms of a long-term lease of land, facilities, and resources in Sevastopol and the Crimea by Russia. Russia kept its naval base, with around 15,000 troops stationed in Sevastopol.

The ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet and its facilities were divided between Russia's Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian Naval Forces. The two navies co-used some of the city's harbours and piers, while others were demilitarised or used by either country. Sevastopol remained the location of the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters, and the Ukrainian Naval Forces Headquarters were also located in the city. A judicial row periodically continued over the naval hydrographic infrastructure both in Sevastopol and on the Crimean coast (especially lighthouses historically maintained by the Soviet and Russian Navy and also used for civil navigation support).

As in the rest of Crimea, Russian remained the predominant language of the city, although following the independence of Ukraine there were some attempts at Ukrainisation, with very little success. Russian society in general and even some outspoken government representatives never accepted the loss of Sevastopol and tended to regard it as temporarily separated from Russia.

In July 2009, the chairman of the Sevastopol city council, Valeriy Saratov (Party of Regions), said that Ukraine should increase the amount of compensation it is paying to the city of Sevastopol for hosting the foreign Russian Black Sea Fleet, instead of requesting such compensation from the Russian government and the Russian Ministry of Defense in particular.

On 27 April 2010, Russia and Ukraine ratified the Russian Ukrainian Naval Base for Gas treaty, which extended the Russian Navy's lease of the Crimean facilities for 25 years after 2017 (through 2042) with the option to prolong the lease in five-year extensions. The ratification process in the Ukrainian parliament encountered stiff opposition and even resulted in a brawl in the parliament chamber. Eventually, the treaty was ratified by a 52% majority vote—236 of 450. The Russian Duma ratified the treaty by a 98% majority.

Occupation and annexation by Russia
On 23 February 2014, a pro-Russian rally took place in Nakhimov Square declaring allegiance to Russia and protesting against the new government in Kyiv following the overthrow of the president, Viktor Yanukovych. On 27 February, pro-Russian militia, including Russian troops, seized control of government buildings in Crimea, and by 28 February, controlled other strategic locations such as the military airport in Sevastopol.

On 16 March 2014, an internationally unrecognised referendum was held in Sevastopol with official results claiming an 89.51% turnout and 95.6% of voters choosing to join Russia. Ukraine and almost all other countries of the United Nations General Assembly consider the referendum illegal and illegitimate.

On 18 March, Russia annexed Crimea, incorporating the Republic of Crimea and federal city of Sevastopol as federal subjects of Russia. However, the annexation remains internationally unrecognised, with most countries recognizing Sevastopol as a city with special status within Ukraine. While Russia has taken de facto control of Sevastopol and Crimea, the international community considers the area as part of Ukraine.

Geography

The city of Sevastopol is located at the southwestern tip of the Crimean peninsula in a headland known as Heracles peninsula on a coast of the Black Sea. The city is designated a special city-region of Ukraine which besides the city itself includes several of its outlying settlements. The city itself is concentrated mostly in the western portion of the region and around the long Bay of Sevastopol. This bay is a ria, a river canyon drowned by Holocene sea-level rise, and the outlet of Chorna River. Away in a remote location southeast of Sevastopol is located the former city of Balaklava (since 1957 incorporated within Sevastopol), the bay of which in the Soviet era served as a main port for the Soviet diesel-powered submarines.

The coastline of the region is mostly rocky, in a series of smaller bays, a great number of which are located within the Bay of Sevastopol. The biggest of them are Southern Bay (within the Bay of Sevastopol), Archer Bay, a gulf complex that consists of Deergrass Bay, the Bay of Cossack, Salty Bay, and many others. There are over thirty bays in the immediate region.

Three rivers flow through the region: the Belbek, Chorna, and Kacha. All three mountain chains of the Crimean mountains are represented in Sevastopol, the southern chain by the Balaklava Highlands, the inner chain by the Mekenziev Mountains, and the outer chain by the Kara-Tau Upland (Black Mountain).

Climate
Sevastopol has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa). Due to the summer mean straddling 22 C it borders on a four-season oceanic climate, with cold winters and warm summers.

The average yearly temperature is 15 – during the day and around 9 °C at night. In the coldest months, January and February, the average temperature is 5 – during the day and around 1 °C at night. In the warmest months, July and August, the average temperature is around 26 °C during the day and around 19 °C at night. Generally, the summer/holiday season lasts 5 months, from around mid-May and into September, with the temperature often reaching 20 °C or more in the first half of October.

The average annual temperature of the sea is 14.2 °C, ranging from 7 °C in February to 24 °C in August. From June to September, the average sea temperature is greater than 20 °C. In the second half of May and the first half of October; the average sea temperature is about 17 °C. The average rainfall is about 400 mm per year. There are about 2,345 hours of sunshine duration per year.

Ukrainian administration
According to the Constitution of Ukraine, Sevastopol is administered as a City with special status. Executive power in Sevastopol is exercised by the Sevastopol City State Administration, led by a chairman (also known as mayor) appointed by the Ukrainian president. The Sevastopol City Council is the legislature of Sevastopol.

Sevastopol is administratively divided into four districts:
 * Gagarin Raion
 * Lenin Raion
 * Nakhimov Raion
 * Balaklava Raion

Russian occupation
On 18 March 2014, Russia claimed to have annexed Crimea with Sevastopol being administered as a federal city of Russia, the others being Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The head of the executive branch in the city is the Governor of Sevastopol. According to the city charter, amended on 29 November 2016, the governor is elected in a direct election for a term of five years and no more than two consecutive terms. The current governor is Mikhail Razvozhayev.
 * Executive

During the annexation of Ukrainian Crimea by Russia, the pro-Russian City Council threw its support behind Russian citizen Alexei Chaly as a "people's mayor" and said it would not recognise orders from Kyiv. After Russia annexed Crimea, the Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol replaced the City Council.
 * Legislature

 * Administrative and municipal divisions

Within the Russian municipal framework, the territory of the federal city of Sevastopol is divided into nine municipal okrugs and the town of Inkerman. While individual municipal divisions are contained within the borders of the administrative districts, they are not otherwise related to the administrative districts.

Economy
Apart from navy-related civil facilities, Sevastopol hosts some other notable industries. An example is Stroitel, a major plastic manufacturer.

Industry

 * Sevastopol Aircraft Plant, SMZ Sevastopol Shipyards (main at Naval Bay) & Inkerman Shipyards, Balaklava Bay Shipyard
 * Impuls 2 SMZ
 * Chornomornaftogaz § Chernomorneftegaz (Chjornomor), oil/gas extraction, petrochemical, jack rigs and oil platforms, LNG and oil tankers.
 * AO FNGUP Granit subsidiary of Almaz Antej, assembly, overhaul, and maintenance of SAM and radar EW complexes, ADS services.
 * Sevastopol (Parus SPriborMZ, Mayak, NPO Elektron, NPP Kvant, Tavrida Elektronik, Musson, and other industrial plants)
 * Sevastopol Economic Industrial Zone SevPZ (SE area)
 * Persej SMZ ship repair and floating dock yard plant (South Bay, Sevastopol)
 * Sevastopol ship repair and floating docks yards (various)
 * Metallurgy, Chemical Plants, and other industries.
 * Agriculture: rice, wheat, grapes, tea, fruits, and tobacco (lesser).
 * Mining: iron, titanium, manganese, aluminum, calcite silicates, and amethyst.
 * Kerch bridge, Taurida highway, Sevastopol GasTES plus solar FV plants, gas and petrol depots, and coal derivatives.

Infrastructure
There are different types of transport in Sevastopol:
 * Bus – 101 lines
 * Trolley bus – 14 lines
 * Minibus – 52 lines
 * Cutter – 6 lines
 * Ferry – 1 line
 * Express bus – 15 lines
 * HEV train (local, suburban route) – 1 route
 * Airport – 1

Sevastopol Shipyard comprises three facilities that together repair, modernise, and re-equip Russian Naval ships and submarines. The Sevastopol International Airport is used as a military aerodrome at the moment and being reconstructed to be used by international airlines.

Sevastopol maintains a large port facility in the Bay of Sevastopol and in smaller bays around the Heracles peninsula. The port handles traffic from passengers (local transportation and cruise), cargo, and commercial fishing. The port infrastructure is fully integrated with the city of Sevastopol and the naval bases of the Black Sea Fleet.

Tourism
Due to its military history, most streets in the city are named after Russian and Soviet military heroes. There are hundreds of monuments and plaques in various parts of Sevastopol commemorating its military past.

Attractions include: • Chersonesos National Archaeological Reserve

• MP Kroshitsky Sevastopol Art Museum

• Sevastopol Museum of Local History

• Aquarium-Museum of the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

• Dolphinarium of Sevastopol

• Monument to the Sunken Ships

• The Panorama Museum (The Heroic Defence of Sevastopol during the Crimean War)

• Malakhov Kurgan (Barrow) with its White Tower

• Admirals' Burial Vault

• The Black Sea Fleet Museum

• The Storming of Sapun-gora of 7 May 1944, the Diorama Museum (World War II)

• Naval museum complex "Balaklava", decommissioned underground submarine base, now opened to the public

• Cheremetieff brothers museum "Crimean war 1853–1856"

• Museum of the underground forces of 1942–1944

• Museum Historical Memorial Complex "35th Coastal Battery"

• The Naval Museum "Michael's battery"

• Fraternal (Communal) War Cemetery

Demographics
The population of Sevastopol is 509,992, consisting of 479,394 urban residents and 30,598 rural (January 2021), making it the most populous city of the Crimean Peninsula.

The city has retained an ethnic Russian majority throughout its history. In 1989 the proportion of Russians living in the city was 74.4%, and by the time of the Ukrainian National Census, 2001, the ethnic groups of Sevastopol included Russians (71.6%), Ukrainians (22.4%), Belarusians (1.6%), Tatars (0.7%), Crimean Tatars (0.5%), Armenians (0.3%), Jews (0.3%), Moldovans (0.2%), and Azerbaijanis (0.2%).

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Vital statistics for 2015:
 * Births: 5 471 (13.7 per 1000)
 * Deaths: 6 072 (15.2 per 1000)

Life expectancy
In 2015, Sevastopol had the largest decrease in life expectancy at birth among all regions of Russia. In 2020, after beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sevastopol became the only region of Russia where there was increase of life expectancy. In 2021, average life expectancy at birth in Sevastopol was 72.25 years (67.87 for males and 76.43 for females).

Culture
There are many historical buildings in the central and eastern parts of the city and Balaklava, some of which are architectural monuments. The Western districts have modern architecture. More recently, numerous skyscrapers have been built. Balaklava Bayfront Plaza (on hold), currently under construction, will be one of the tallest buildings in Ukraine, at 173 m with 43 floors.

After the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea the city's monument to Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny was removed and handed over to Kharkiv.

Education

 * Economics and Humanities Institute (Branch), Crimean Federal University
 * Sevastopol National Technical University
 * Sevastopol National University of Nuclear Energy and Industry

Notable people

 * Alla Kostromichova (born 1986) a Ukrainian fashion model and TV presenter.
 * Arkady Averchenko (1881–1925) a Russian playwright and satirist.
 * Oleksiy Bessarabov (born 1976) a Ukrainian journalist
 * Igor Cassini (1915–2002) a Russian-American syndicated gossip columnist for the Hearst newspaper chain.
 * Aleksei Chaly (born 1961) a businessman and former de facto mayor of Sevastopol.
 * Alexander Galich (1918–1977) a Soviet poet, playwright, singer-songwriter and dissident.
 * Gulyayev Dmitry Igorevich (born 1986), stage name Dimal, rapper, songwriter and entertainer, based in Malta.
 * Lola Gjoka (1910–1985) an Albanian pianist
 * Tatiana Godovalnikova (born 1962) a Russian contemporary artist.
 * Rimma Kazakova (1932–2008) a Soviet/Russian poet who wrote popular songs.
 * Sasha Krasny (1882– 1995), a Russian poet and songwriter.
 * Aleksandr Kuznetsov (born 1992) a Ukrainian-Russian actor in Russian films and TV
 * Ileana Leonidoff (1893–1968) emigrée actress in silent films; then dancer and choreographer.
 * Kseniya Mishyna (born 1989) a Ukrainian film and stage actress.
 * Mikhail Samoilovich Neiman (1905–1975) a Soviet physicist and academic professor.
 * Aleksandr Nosatov (born 1963) an admiral in the Russian Navy.
 * Ivan Papanin (1894–1986) a Soviet polar explorer, scientist and Counter Admiral
 * Sergei Pinchuk (born 1971) a vice-admiral in the Russian Navy.
 * Olga von Root (1902–1967), Russian noblewoman, singer, and stage actress
 * Mikhail Sablin (1869–1920), an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy
 * Anton Shkaplerov (born 1972) a Russian cosmonaut with four spaceflights.
 * Antonina Shuranova (1936–2003) a Russian stage, TV and film actress.
 * Alexandra Voronin (1905—1993) the Russian wife of Norwegian fascist Vidkun Quisling

Sport

 * Lyudmila Aksyonova (born 1947) 400 metre athlete, team bronze medallist at the 1976 Summer Olympics
 * Aleksandr Fyodorov (born 1981) water polo player and team bronze medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
 * Svitlana Matevusheva (born 1981) a sailor and team silver medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics
 * Alexander Onischuk (born 1975) a Ukrainian-American chess Grandmaster
 * Galina Prozumenshchikova (1948–2015) a Soviet breaststroke swimmer; five Olympic medals in 1964, 1968 and 1972
 * Marina Durunda (born 1997) an Azerbaijani rhythmic gymnast; finalist at the 2016 Summer Olympics

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title: Sevastopol


text:
Umbria

Umbria is a region of central Italy. It includes Lake Trasimeno and Marmore Falls, and is crossed by the Tiber. It is the only landlocked region on the Apennine Peninsula. The regional capital is Perugia.

The region is characterized by hills, mountains, valleys and historical towns such as the university centre of Perugia, Assisi (a World Heritage Site associated with St. Francis of Assisi), Terni, Norcia, Città di Castello, Gubbio, Spoleto, Orvieto, Todi, Castiglione del Lago, Narni, Amelia, Spello and other small cities.

Geography
Umbria is bordered by Tuscany to the west and the north, Marche to the east and Lazio to the south. Partly hilly and mountainous, and partly flat and fertile owing to the valley of the Tiber, its topography includes part of the central Apennines, with the highest point in the region at Monte Vettore on the border of the Marche, at 2476 m; the lowest point is Attigliano, 96 m. It is the only Italian region having neither a coastline nor a common border with other countries. The comune of Città di Castello has an exclave named Monte Ruperto within Marche. Contained within Umbria is the hamlet of Cospaia, which was a tiny republic from 1440 to 1826, created by accident.

Umbria is crossed by two valleys: the Umbrian valley ("Valle Umbra"), stretching from Perugia to Spoleto, and the Tiber Valley ("Val Tiberina"), north and west of the first one, from Città di Castello to the border with Lazio. The Tiber River forms the approximate border with Lazio, although its source is just over the Tuscan border. The Tiber's three principal tributaries flow southward through Umbria. The Chiascio basin is relatively uninhabited as far as Bastia Umbra. About 10 km farther on, it joins the Tiber at Torgiano. The Topino, cleaving the Apennines with passes that the Via Flaminia and successor roads follow, makes a sharp turn at Foligno to flow NW for a few kilometres before joining the Chiascio below Bettona. The third river is the Nera, flowing into the Tiber further south, at Terni; its valley is called the Valnerina. The upper Nera cuts ravines in the mountains; the lower, in the Tiber basin, has created a wide floodplain.

In antiquity, the plain was covered by a pair of shallow, interlocking lakes, the Lacus Clitorius and the Lacus Umber. They were drained by the Romans over several hundred years. An earthquake in the 4th century and the political collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in the refilling of the basin. It was drained a second time, almost a thousand years later, during a 500-year period: Benedictine monks started the process in the 13th century, and the draining was completed by an engineer from Foligno in the 18th century.

The eastern part of the region, being crossed by many faults, has been often hit by earthquakes: the last ones have been that of 1997 (which hit Nocera Umbra, Gualdo Tadino, Assisi and Foligno) and those of 2016 (which struck Norcia and the Valnerina).

In literature, Umbria is referred to as Il cuore verde d'Italia or The green heart of Italy. The phrase is taken from a poem by Giosuè Carducci, the subject of which is the source of the Clitunno River in Umbria.

Antiquity
The region is named for the Umbri people, an Italic people which was absorbed by the expansion of the Romans. The Umbri, unlike the Etruscans, with few exceptions did not live in an urban society, but occupied small dwellings located in the Apennines. Pliny the Elder recounted a fanciful derivation for the tribal name from the Greek ὄμβρος (ombros, "a shower"), which led to the idea that they had survived the Deluge familiar from Greek mythology, allowing them to claim to be the most ancient race in Italy. In fact, they belonged to a broader family of neighbouring peoples with similar roots. Their language was Umbrian, one of the Italic languages, related to Latin and Oscan. The town of Gubbio houses today the longest and most important document of any of the Osco-Umbrian group of languages, the Iguvine Tablets, written in Umbrian at the turn of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The northern part of the region was occupied by Gallic tribes.

The Umbri probably sprang, like neighbouring peoples, from the creators of the Terramara, and Proto-Villanovan culture in northern and central Italy, who entered north-eastern Italy at the beginning of the Bronze Age.

The Etruscans were the chief enemies of the Umbri. The Etruscan invasion extended from the western seaboard towards the north and east from about 700 to 500 BC. They eventually drove the Umbrians towards the Apennine uplands and captured 300 Umbrian towns. Nevertheless, the Umbrian population does not seem to have been eradicated in the conquered districts. The border between Etruria and Umbria was the Tiber river, as testified by the ancient name of Todi, Tular ("border").

After the downfall of the Etruscans, Umbrians aided the Samnites in their struggle against Rome (308 BC). Later communications with Samnium were impeded by the Roman fortress of Narnia (founded 229 BC on the place of the umbrian Nequinum, conquered in 299 BC). Romans defeated the Samnites and their Gallic allies in the battle of Sentinum (295 BC). Allied Umbrians and Etruscans had to return home and defend each of their territories against simultaneous Roman attacks, leaving the Samnites without their help at Sentinum.

The Roman victory at Sentinum initiated a period of integration under the Roman rulers, who established some colonies, such as Spoletium, and built the via Flaminia (219 BC). The via Flaminia became a principal vector for Roman development in Umbria. During Hannibal's invasion during the second Punic war, the battle of Lake Trasimene was fought inside the borders of today's Umbria, but the local people did not aid the invader.

During the Roman civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian (40 BC), the city of Perugia supported Antony and was almost completely destroyed by Octavian. In Pliny the Elder's time, 49 independent communities still existed in Umbria, and the abundance of inscriptions and the high proportion of recruits in the imperial army attest to its population. Under Augustus, Umbria became the Regio VI of Roman Italy.

Modern Umbria is different from Roman Umbria. Roman Umbria extended through most of what is now the northern Marche to Ravenna, but excluded the west bank of the Tiber, which belonged to Etruria. Thus Perugia was an Etruscan city and the area around Norcia was in the Sabine territory.

After the collapse of the Roman empire, Ostrogoths and Byzantines struggled for supremacy in the region, and the decisive battle of the war between these two peoples took place near modern Gualdo Tadino.

Middle Ages
Soon after the end of the Gothic war, the Lombards invaded Italy and founded the duchy of Spoleto, covering much of today's southern Umbria, but the Byzantine were able to keep in the region a corridor along the Via Flaminia linking Rome with the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Pentapolis. The Lombard king controlled also the northern part of the region ruled directly by Pavia. When Charlemagne conquered most of the Lombard kingdoms, some Umbrian territories were given to the Pope, who established temporal power over them. Some cities acquired a form of autonomy named comune. These cities were frequently at war with each other, often in a context of more general conflicts, either between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire or between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

In the early 14th century, the signorie arose and the most important of them were those of the Vitelli in Città di Castello, of the Baglioni in Perugia and of the Trinci in Foligno, but the region was subsumed by the middle of the same century into the Papal States by Cardinal Albornoz, who in this way prepared the return of the pope from Avignon to Rome. Città di Castello was subsumed later into the Papal States by Cesare Borgia. During the 15th century Renaissance spread in the northern part of the region. It was in this period that humanists started to use again the ancient denomination of "Umbria" to name the area, which until then had been named "Ducato", after the Duchy of Spoleto in the southern part of it. The supremacy of the pope on Umbria was reinforced in 16th century through the erection of a fortress in Perugia by Pope Paul III, named after him Rocca Paolina. The papacy ruled the region uncontested until the end of the 18th century.

Modern history
After the French Revolution and the French conquest of Italy, Umbria became part of the ephemeral Roman Republic (1798–1799) and later, part of the Napoleonic Empire (1809–1814) under the name of department of Trasimène.

After Napoleon's defeat, the Pope regained Umbria and ruled it until 1860. In that year, during Italian Risorgimento, Umbria with Marche and part of Emilia Romagna were annexed by Piedmontese King Victor Emmanuel II, and the people of Perugia destroyed in the same year the Rocca Paolina, symbol of the papal oppression. The region of Umbria, with capital Perugia, became part of the Kingdom of Italy in the following year. The region, whose economy was mainly based on agriculture, experienced a dramatic economic shift at the end of the 19th century with the founding of the Acciaierie di Terni, a major steelwork placed in Terni because of its abundance of electric power due to the Marmore waterfall and its secluded position.

The region of Umbria at the time was somewhat larger than today, comprising Rieti to the south, now part of Lazio. Rieti was detached and added to the Province of Rome (Lazio) in 1923. In 1927, the region of Umbria was divided into the provinces of Perugia and Terni.

During WWII, the industrial centers of the region like Terni and Foligno were heavily bombed and in 1944 became a battlefield between the allied forces and the Germans retreating towards the Gothic Line. In 1946, Umbria was incorporated into the Italian Republic as a region, comprising the two provinces of Perugia and Terni.

Economy
The present economic structure emerged from a series of transformations which took place mainly in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, there was rapid expansion among small and medium-sized firms and a gradual retrenchment among the large firms which had hitherto characterised the region's industrial base. This process of structural adjustment is still going on.

Economically the most important region is the upper Tiber valley with Città di Castello. Terni steelworks (stainless steel, titanium, alloy steel) and processing companies (automotive, stainless steel tubes, industrial food facility) account for 20 to 25% of Umbria's GDP. In Terni there are also many multinational companies in the fields of chemistry, hydroelectric power, renewable sources of energy, and textiles (Alcantara, Cashmere). In the rest of the region the ornamental ceramics industry is much esteemed.

Umbrian agriculture is noted for its tobacco, olive oil and vineyards, which produce wines. Regional varietals include the white Orvieto, which draws agri-tourists to the vineyards in the area surrounding the medieval town of the same name. A notable wine is the Grechetto of Todi. Other noted wines produced in Umbria are Torgiano and Rosso di Montefalco. The Umbrian wineries are at the center of the "Cantine Aperte" or "Open Cellars" event, when local wine makers open their wineries to the public. Another typical Umbrian product is the black truffle found in Valnerina, an area that produces 45% of this product in Italy.

The food industry in Umbria produces processed pork-meats, confectionery, pasta and the traditional products of Valnerina in preserved form (truffles, lentils, cheese).

The unemployment rate stood at 8.2% in 2020.

Tourism
Umbria has many small and picturesque villages, 31 of them have been selected by I Borghi più belli d'Italia (The most beautiful Villages of Italy), a non-profit private association of small Italian towns of strong historical and artistic interest, that was founded on the initiative of the Tourism Council of the National Association of Italian Municipalities.

Umber
Umbria is the region where the Umber pigment was originally extracted. The name comes from terra d'ombra, or earth of Umbria, the Italian name of the pigment. The word also may be related to the Latin word umbra, meaning "shadow". Umber is a natural brown or reddish-brown earth pigment that contains iron oxide and manganese oxide.

In the 20th century, natural umber pigments began to be replaced by pigments made with synthetic iron oxide and manganese oxide. Natural umber pigments are still being made, with Cyprus as a prominent source.

Government and politics
Umbria was a former stronghold of the Italian Communist Party, forming with Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Marche what was then known as Italy's "Red Regions". Umbria was considered a stronghold of the Democratic Party and left-leaning parties for over 50 years, however in 2019 the candidate of the centre-right coalition Donatella Tesei won the region's presidential election against her centre-left rival Vincenzo Bianconi, garnering 57.5% of the vote.

Demographics
, the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 75,631 foreign-born immigrants live in Umbria, equal to 8.5% of the total population of the region.

Administrative divisions
Umbria is divided into two provinces:

Festivals
One of the most important festivals in Umbria is "the festival of the Ceri (Candles)", also known as Saint Ubaldo Day in Gubbio. The race has been held every year since 1160, on the 15th day of May. The festival is focused around a race consisting of three teams of cerioli, carrying large symbolic "candles" topped by saints, including St. Ubald (the patron saint of Gubbio), S. Giorgio (St. George), and S. Antonio (Anthony the Great), and run through throngs of cheering supporters. The cerioli are clad in the distinctive colors of yellow, blue or black, according to the saint they support, with white trousers and red belts and neckbands. They travel up much of the mountain from the main square in front of the Palazzo dei Consoli to the basilica of St. Ubaldo, each team carrying a statue of their saint mounted on a wooden octagonal prism, similar to an hour-glass shape 4 metres tall and weighing about 280 kg (617 lb).

The race has strong devotional, civic, and historical overtones and is one of the best-known folklore manifestations in Italy, and therefore the Ceri were chosen as the heraldic emblem on the coat of arms of Umbria as a modern administrative region.

Umbria is not only known for its historical recollections such as the festival of the Ceri, Calendimaggio in Assisi and the giostra della Quintana in Foligno, but also for one of the biggest jazz music festivals called Umbria Jazz. Umbria Jazz was born as a festival in 1973 and since 2003 has been held in the Umbrian capital "Perugia" in July; it has become the fixed appointment of all jazz and good music lovers. Another important festival is the Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds), an annual summer music and opera festival which is held each June to early July in Spoleto.

title: Umbria