Overview

Mangaluru (Kannada: [mɐŋɡɐɭuːru]), formerly called Mangalore ( MANG-gə-lor, -⁠LOR), is a major industrial port city in the Indian state of Karnataka and on the west coast of India. It is located between the Laccadive Sea and the Western Ghats about 352 km (219 mi) west of Bengaluru, the state capital, 14 km (8.7 mi) north of Karnataka–Kerala border and 297 km (185 mi) south of Goa. Mangaluru is the state's only city to have all four modes of transport—air, road, rail and sea. The population of the urban agglomeration was 619,664 according to the 2011 national census of India. It is known for being one of the locations of the Indian strategic petroleum reserves. The city developed as a port in the Laccadive Sea during ancient times, and after Independence a new port was constructed in 1968 and has since become a major port of India that handles 75 percent of India's coffee and cashew exports. It is also the country's seventh largest container port. Mangaluru has been ruled by several major powers, including the Mauryan empire, Kadambas, Alupas, Vijayanagar Empire, and Keladi Nayaks. The city was a source of contention between the British and the Kingdom of Mysore rulers Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, and was eventually annexed by the British in 1799. Mangaluru remained part of the Madras Presidency until India's independence in 1947 and was unified with Mysore State (now called Karnataka) in 1956. Mangaluru is one of the fastest developing cities in India. The Dakshina Kannada district with its administrative headquarters at Mangaluru has the highest Per Capita Income and Gross State Domestic Product in Karnataka, after Bengaluru. Mangaluru is a commercial, industrial, business, educational, healthcare, and startup hub. Mangaluru City Corporation is responsible for the civic administration which manages the 60 wards of the city. Its landscape is characterised by rolling hills, coconut palms, rivers, and hard laterite soil. Mangaluru is included as one of the cities in the Smart Cities Mission list and is among the 100 smart cities to be developed in India. It has an average elevation of 22 m (72 ft) above mean sea level. It has a tropical monsoon climate and is under the influence of the southwest monsoon. It has its own international airport which is around 15 km from the city centre. == Etymology == Mangaluru was named after the deity Mangaladevi, the presiding deity of the Mangaladevi Temple, or a synonym of the goddess Tara of the Vajrayana Buddhist sect. According to local legend, a princess named Parimala or Premaladevi from Malabar renounced her kingdom and became a disciple of Matsyendranath, the founder of the Nath tradition. Having converted Premaladevi to the Nath sect, Matsyendranath renamed her Mangaladevi. She arrived in the area with Matsyendranath, but had to settle near Bolar in Mangaluru because she fell ill on the way. When she died, the people consecrated the Mangaladevi temple at Bolar in her honour. The city was named for the temple. One of the earliest references to the city's name was in 715 CE when Pandyan King Chettian called the city Mangalapuram. The city and the coastal region were part of the Pandyan Kingdom. According to K.V. Ramesh, president of the Place Names Society of India, Mangaluru was first used in 1345 CE during Vijayanagara rule. Many shilashasanas (stones) of the Vijayanagara period refer the city as Mangalapura. During the Alupa dynasty period, it was referred to as Mangalapura (Mangala means 'auspicious'). In the Kannada language, the city is known as Mangaluru, a reference to Mangaladevi (the suffix uru means town or city). Mangaluru was historically an important centre of Indian Ocean trade on the Malabar coast. Hence, it was also known by the name Manjalūr in Arabic. During British rule from 1799, the anglicised version Mangalore became the official appellation. According to historian George M. Moraes, however, the word Mangalore is the Portuguese corruption of Mangaluru.: 2 The city's name appears on maps as far back as the 1652 Sanson Map of India. Mangaluru's diverse communities have different names for the city in their languages. In Tulu, which is the region's primary spoken language, the city is called Kudla (Tulu: [kuɖɭɐ]), meaning junction because it is situated at the confluence of the Netravati and Gurupura rivers. In Konkani, Mangaluru is referred to as Kodiyal (Konkani: [koɖijəl]), the Byari name for the city is Maikala (IPA: [mɐi̯kɐlɐ]), and in Malayalam, the city is called "Mangalapuram" (Malayalam: [mɐŋɡɐlaːpuɾɐm]) meaning auspicious city (same mangala as the Kannada term). Mangalore was officially renamed "Mangaluru" by the Karnataka government on 1 November 2014. == History == === Early and medieval history === Mangaluru's historical importance is highlighted by the many references to the city by foreign travellers. During the first century CE, the Roman historian Pliny the Elder referred to a place called "Nitrias" and said it was an undesirable place for disembarkation because of the pirates who frequented its vicinity, while Greek second-century historian Ptolemy referenced a place named "Nitra". These references were probably about an area with the Netravati River which flows through Mangalore. In his sixth-century work Christian Topography, Cosmas Indicopleustes (a Greek monk) mentions Malabar as being the chief seat of the pepper trade and Mangarouth (port of Mangaluru) as one of the five pepper markets which exported pepper. According to Kerala Muslim tradition, the Masjid Zeenath Baksh at Mangalore is one of the oldest mosques in Indian subcontinent. According to the Legend of Cheraman Perumals, the first Indian mosque was built in 624 AD at Kodungallur with the mandate of the last the ruler (the Cheraman Perumal) of Chera dynasty, who left from Dharmadom to Mecca and converted to Islam during the lifetime of Muhammad (c. 570–632). According to Qissat Shakarwati Farmad, the Masjids at Kodungallur, Kollam, Madayi, Barkur, Mangaluru, Kasaragod, Kannur, Dharmadam, Panthalayani (Koyilandy), and Chaliyam, were built during the era of Malik Dinar; they are among the oldest Masjids in Indian Subcontinent. It is believed that Malik Dinar died at Thalangara in Kasaragod town. Three of them, Mangaluru, Barkur, and Kasaragod, are in Tulu Nadu. Mangaluru is considered the heart of a distinct multi-linguistic cultural region, the homeland of the Tulu-speaking people. In the third century BCE, the town formed part of the Maurya Empire, which was ruled by the Buddhist emperor Ashoka of Magadha. From the third to the sixth century CE, the Kadamba dynasty, whose capital was based in Banavasi in North Canara, ruled over the entire Canara region as independent rulers. From the middle of the seventh century to the end of the 14th century, the South Canara region was ruled by its native Alupa rulers,: 17 who ruled over the region as feudatories of major regional dynasties like the Chalukyas of Badami, Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta, Chalukyas of Kalyani, and Hoysalas of Dwarasamudra. An Old Malayalam inscription (part of the Ramanthali inscriptions which date to 1075 CE), mentions king Kunda Alupa, the ruler of Alupa dynasty of Mangalore. It can be found at Ezhimala (the former headquarters of Mushika dynasty) near Cannanore, in the North Malabar region of Kerala. During the 1130s and 1140s, during the reign of the Alupa king Kavi Alupendra (1110–1160), the city was home to the Tunisian Jewish merchant Abraham Ben Yiju. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited Mangaluru in 1342, referred to it as Manjarur and stated the town was situated on a large estuary called the Estuary of the wolf, which was the greatest estuary in the country of Malabar.: 30 By 1345 the Vijayanagara rulers brought the region under their control.: 17 During the Vijayanagara period (1345–1550), South Canara was divided into Mangaluru and Barkur rajyas (provinces), and two governors were appointed to look after each of them from Mangalore and Barkur. Often a single governor ruled over both Mangaluru and Barkur rajyas; when the authority passed to the Keladi rulers (1550–1763), they only had a governor at Barkur.: 19 In 1448 Abdur Razzaq who was the Persian ambassador of Sultan Shah Rukh of Samarkand, visited Mangaluru en route to the Vijayanagara court.: 31 The Italian traveller Ludovico di Varthema, who visited India in 1506, said he saw nearly sixty ships laden with rice ready to sail from the port of Mangalore.: 20 === Foundation and early modern history === In 1498, European influence in Mangaluru began when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama landed at the nearby St Mary's Islands, just after his arrival at Koyilandy, Kozhikode. The Portuguese acquired many commercial interests in Canara in the 16th century. Krishnadevaraya (1509–1529), the ruler of the Vijaynagara empire maintained a friendly relationship with the Portuguese, whose trade slowly grew and they strove to destroy the coastal Arab and Mappila trade. In 1524, Vasco da Gama ordered the blockading of rivers after he heard the Muslim merchants of Kozhikode had agents at Mangaluru and Basrur. In 1526, the Portuguese under the viceroyship of Lopo Vaz de Sampaio took possession of Mangaluru. The coastal trade passed into Portuguese hands.: 20 In 1550, the Vijayanagara ruler Sadashiva Raya entrusted to Sadashiv Nayaka of Keladi with administering the coastal region of Canara. By 1554, he established political authority over South Canara. The 16th century work Tuhfat Ul Mujahideen written by Zainuddin Makhdoom II appears to be the first historical work written in detail about the contemporary history of Mangaluru. It is written in Arabic and contains pieces of information about the resistance put up by the navy of Kunjali Marakkar alongside the Zamorin of Calicut from 1498 to 1583 against Portuguese attempts to colonize Tulu Nadu and Malabar coast. After the disintegration of the Vijaynagara Empire in 1565, the rulers of Keladi attained greater power in dealing with the coastal Canara region.: 27 They continued the Vijayanagara administrative system and the provinces of Mangalore and Barkur continued to exist. The governor of Mangaluru also acted as the governor of the Keladi army in his province.: 30 The Italian traveller Pietro Della Valle visited here in 1623–1624. In 1695, Arabs burnt the town in retaliation to Portuguese restrictions on Arab trade. In 1763, Hyder Ali, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, conquered Mangaluru, which was brought under his administration until 1767. Mangaluru was ruled by the British East India Company from 1767 to 1783, but Hyder Ali's son Tipu Sultan took it from their control in 1783 and renamed it "Jalalabad". The Second Anglo–Mysore War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Mangalore by Tipu Sultan and the British East India Company on 11 March 1784. After the defeat of Tipu at the Fourth Anglo–Mysore War, the city remained under British control. South Canara district was the headquarters under the Madras Presidency. Francis Buchanan, a Scottish physician who visited Mangalore in 1801, said the city was a prosperous port with plentiful trade. The main commodity of export was rice; it went to Muscat, Bombay, Goa, and Malabar. Supari (Betel-nut) was exported to Bombay, Surat, and Kutch. Sandalwood and black pepper were exported to Bombay. Local capital was mainly invested in land and money lending, leading to the regional development of banking because the British colonial government did not support industrialisation there. After European missionaries arrived in the early 19th century, educational institutions and modern industries modelled on European ones were developed in the region. The opening of the Lutheran Swiss Basel Mission in 1834 was an important step towards industrialisation. Missionaries set up printing presses, textile mills and factories that made Mangaluru tiles. When Canara (part of the Madras Presidency until this time) was split into North Canara and South Canara in 1859, Mangalore became the headquarters of South Canara,: 5 which remained under Madras Presidency while in 1862, North Canara was transferred to the Bombay Presidency.: 6 === Later modern and contemporary history === On 23 May 1866, a municipal council for Mangaluru with responsibility for civic amenities and urban planning was mandated by the Madras Town Improvement Act (1865).: 178 The Italian Jesuits who arrived in the city in 1878, played an