Quilon - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

QUILON, a seaport of India, on the Malabar coast, in the state of Travancore. Pop. (1901) 15,691. Quilon enjoys great facilities of water communication, and has an active export trade in timber, coco-nuts, ginger, pepper, &c. The palace of the maharaja of Travancore stands on the bank of Quilon lake, a beautiful sheet of water. Besides being on a projecting point, Quilon is rendered still more unsafe to approach by the bank of hard ground called the Tangasseri reef, which extends some distance to the south-west and west of the point and along the coast to the northward. There is good anchorage, however, in a bight about 3 m. from the fort. Quilon is one of the oldest towns on the Malabar coast, and continued to be a place of considerable importance down to the beginning of the 16th century. It is now the headquarters of the Travancore army, with a subsidiary battalion. Cotton weaving and spinning and the manufacture of tiles are the chief industries. It is the terminus of a railway across the hills from Tinnevelly. Adjoining Quilon is the British village of Tangasseri, formerly a Portuguese and then a Dutch settlement, which is administered with Anjengo; pop. (1901) 1733.