Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies 650 square kilometres (250 sq mi) on the banks of the Musi River on the Deccan Plateau in southern India. The population of the city is 6.8 million, and its metropolitan area includes 7.75 million people, making it India\'s fourth most populous city and sixth most populous urban agglomeration. The Hyderabad Municipal Corporation was expanded in 2007 to form the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. As a growing metropolitan city in a developing country, Hyderabad experiences substantial pollution and other logistical and socio-economic problems.
Hyderabad was established in 1591 CE by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah. It remained under the rule of the Qutb Shahi dynasty until 1687, when Mughal emperor Aurangzeb conquered the region and the city became part of the Deccan province of the Mughal empire. In 1724 Asif Jah I, a Mughal viceroy, declared his sovereignty and formed the Asif Jahi dynasty, also known as the Nizams of Hyderabad. The Nizams ruled the princely state of Hyderabad in a subsidiary alliance with the British Raj for more than two centuries. The city remained the princely state\'s capital from 1769 to 1948, when the Nizam signed an Instrument of Accession with the Indian Union at the conclusion of Operation Polo. The 1956 States Reorganisation Act created the modern state of Andhra Pradesh, with Hyderabad as its capital. Since 1969, Hyderabad has been a major centre of the Telangana movement, which demands that the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh should be made a separate state.