During the 10th century, the native Chaulukya dynasty came to power. From 1297 to 1300, Alauddin Khalji, the Turkic Sultan of Delhi, destroyed Anhilwara and incorporated Gujarat into the Delhi Sultanate. After Timur’s sacking of Delhi at the end of the 14th century weakened the Sultanate, Gujarat’s governor Zafar Khan Muzaffar asserted his independence, and his son, Sultan Ahmad Shah I (ruled 1411 to 1442), restructured Ahmedabad as the capital. In the early 16th century the Rana Sanga invasion of Gujarat weakened the power of Gujarat as he annexed northern Gujarat and appointed his vassal to rule there, however after his death, the Sultan of Gujarat recovered its kingdom and even sacked Chittor Fort in 1535. The Sultanate of Gujarat remained independent until 1576, when the Mughal emperor Akbar conquered it and annexed it to the Mughal Empire as a province. Surat had become the prominent and main port of India during Mughal rule.

Later in the 18th century, Gujarat came under control of the Maratha Empire who dominated the politics of India. The British East India Company wrested control of much of Gujarat from the Marathas during the Second Anglo-Maratha War. Many local rulers, notably the Gaekwads of Baroda, made a separate peace with the British and acknowledged British sovereignty in return for retaining local self-rule. Gujarat was placed under the political authority of the Bombay Presidency, with the exception of Baroda state, which had a direct relationship with the Governor-General of India. From 1818 to 1947, most of present-day Gujarat, including Kathiawar, Kutch, and northern and eastern Gujarat were divided into hundreds of princely states, but several districts in central and southern Gujarat were ruled directly by British officials. Mohandas Gandhi, considered India’s “father of the nation”, was a Gujarati who led the Indian Independence Movement against the British colonial rule.