A planned neighbourhood in South Delhi, built in the 1950s for military officers and their families, now one of the city's most pleasant and expensive residential enclaves. The streets are wide and relatively tree-lined by Delhi standards, the houses solid and low-rise, and the local market has developed into one of the city's better clusters of restaurants, cafes, and independent shops without the intensity of Khan Market.
The Defence Colony Market has a good range of restaurants across cuisines — notably strong for Delhi-style mughlai food at Swagath and Sagar Ratna, and increasingly good for coffee. The neighbourhood sits conveniently between the Lodi Garden and the Safdarjung Tomb — the last great Mughal tomb in Delhi, built 1753–54 and formally the last monument of Mughal imperial architecture, set in formal gardens that are nearly always quieter than the better-known sites nearby.