Dhar is situated between 21°57' to 23°15' N and 74°37' to 75°37' E. The city is bordered in the north by Ratlam, to the east by parts of Indore, in the south by Barwani, and to the west by Jhabua and Alirajpur.

The circular ramparts of Dhar, unique in north India and an important legacy of the Paramāras, are unprotected and have been slowly dismantled by brick-makers and others using the wall material for construction.

The fortress is thought to have been built by Muhammad bin Tughluq, the Sultan of Delhi, most likely on the site of the ancient Dhārāgiri mentioned in early sources.

[4] Inside the fort there is a deep rock-cut cistern of great age, and a later palace of the Mahārāja of Dhar that incorporates an elegant pillared porch from the Mughal period, possibly built in the mid-17th century.

The palace area houses an outdoor museum with a small collection of temple fragments and images dating to medieval times.

Inside the fort, a large number of sculptures and antiquities from Dhar and its neighbourhood are kept in utilitarian buildings constructed in the late 19th century.

On the overgrown ramparts of the medieval city, overlooking the old moat, is the tomb of Shaykh Abdullah Shāh Changāl, a warrior saint.

The pillar, which was nearly 13.2 m high according to the most recent assessment, carries several inscriptions, the most important recording a visit by the Mughal emperor Akbar in 1598 while on a military campaign in the Deccan.

[10] Except for the Mihrab and Minbar, which were purpose-built for the monument, the hypostyle hall immediately next the tomb of Kamāl Maula is made of recycled temple columns and other architectural parts.

[11] In 1903, a Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions from the time of Arjunavarman (circa 1210–15) were found in the walls of the building by K. K. Lele, Superintendent of Education in the Princely State of Dhar.

[12] Other tablets noted by Lele include a slab inscribed with the Kūrmaśataka – verses in praise of the Kūrma incarnation of Viṣhṇu – and serpentine inscriptions containing the grammatical rules of the Sanskrit language.

[15] Of the same time period as the palace are a collection of domed cenotaphs of the Pawar rulers on the edge of the large tank known as Muñj Talab.

The name of the tank was probably derived from Vākpati Muñja (10th century), the first Paramāra king that entered Mālwa and made Ujjain his main administrative seat.

[16] The tomb said to be that of Shaykh Zahīr al-Dīn Qādirī, a contemporary of Kamāl-al-Dīn, stands in the fields on the western side of the old circular city.

It was built by the Public Works Department during British rule and was the center of the administration of Dhar State and the Central India Agency.

Known as the Jheera Bāgh Palace, the complex was renovated by Mahārāja Anand Rao Pawar IV in the 1940s and is now run as a heritage hotel.

Designed in an unpretentious art deco style, it is considered to be one of the most elegant and forward-looking examples of early modern architecture in North India.

The town of Dhar, derived from Dhārā Nagara ('city of sword blades'), is of considerable antiquity,[2] the first reference to it appearing in an inscription in Jaunpur during the Maukhari dynasty (6th century).

[22] The devastation and political fragmentation caused by these wars meant that there was no significant opposition when Ala ud din Khilji, the Sultān of Delhi, dispatched an army to Mālwa in the early 14th century.

[2] In late 1723, Bajirao, at the head of a large army and accompanied by his lieutenants Malharrao Holkar, Ranoji Shinde (Scindia) and Udaji Rao Pawar, swept through Malwa.

The revenues the Marathas collected from their own lands were not sufficient to run the administration of their state and finance their large military expenditure, as their government was focused on conquest and not economic development.

In 1860, it was restored to Raja Anand Rao III Pawar, then a minor, with the exception of the detached district of Bairusia which was granted to the Begum of Bhopal.

Bhartiya Janata Party politician Neena Vikram Verma serves as a member of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly for the Dhar-Vidhan-Sabha Constituency.