Main article: Geography of Mumbai
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Mumbai(Redirected from Bombay)
Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the most populous Indian city. Mumbai is located on an island off the west coast of India at . With an estimated 2005 metropolitan population of 17 million, it is the sixth most populous agglomeration (metropolis) in the world, and clustered along with its outlying satellite townships forms the world's most populous conurbation. The city, which has a deep natural harbour, is also the largest port in western India, handling 50% of India's passenger traffic.  Mumbai is the commercial capital of India, and houses important financial institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies. Owing to the immense business opportunities available in Mumbai and relatively high standard of living, it has attracted migrants from all over India and South Asia, making the city a potpourri of various communities and cultures. Within Mumbai is located Bollywood, the epicentre of the country's Hindi film and television industry, producing the world's highest number of films annually. Mumbai is also one of the rare cities to accommodate a National Park within its municipal limits. The appellation Mumbai is an eponym, etymologically derived from Mumba — the name of the local Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, and Aai — meaning mother in Marathi. In the 16th century, the Portuguese named the area Bom Bahia which means Good Bay. This was later corrupted to Bomaím, and after the British gained possession, it was anglicised to Bombay. The name was officially changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995, but the former name is still popularly used in the West and by many of the city's inhabitants and famous institutions.
HistoryThe present-day Mumbai was originally made up of seven isles. Artefacts found near Kandivali in northern Mumbai indicate that these islands were inhabited since the Stone Age. They were part of the Magadha empire in the 3rd century BC, ruled by the Buddhist emperor Ashoka. Later the Hindu rulers of the Silhara dynasty governed these islands until 1343, when it was annexed by the kingdom of Gujarat. Some of the oldest edifices of the archipelago–the Elephanta Caves and the Walkeshwar temple complex date back to this era. In 1534, the Portuguese appropriated the islands from Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. They were ceded to Charles II of England as dowry of Catherine de Braganza in 1661, who in turn leased it to the British East India Company in 1668 for a sum of £10 per annum. The company found the deep harbour at Bombay eminently apposite, and the population rose from 10,000 in 1661 to 60,000 by 1675. In 1687, the East India Company transferred their headquarters from Surat to Bombay. From 1817 the city was reshaped with large civil engineering projects aimed at merging the islands into a single amalgamated mass. This project, the Hornby Vellard was completed by 1845 and resulted in the area swelling to 435 km². Eight years later in 1853, India's first railway line was established, connecting Bombay to Thana. During the American Civil War, (1861–1865) the city became the world's chief cotton market resulting in a boom in the economy and subsequently in its stature. The opening up of the Suez Canal in 1869, transformed Bombay into one of the largest Arabian Sea ports. The city segued into a major urban centre over the next thirty years due to an improvement in the infrastructure and the construction of many of the city's institutions. Soon the population of the city swelled to one million by 1906, making it the second largest in India, after Calcutta. It later became a major base for the Indian independence movement, with the Quit India Movement called by Mahatma Gandhi in 1942, being its most rubric event. After independence, the city incorporated the parts of the island of Salsette expanding to its present day limits in 1957. It became the capital of the new linguistic state of Maharashtra in 1960. In the late 1970s, Bombay witnessed a construction boom with the significant increase in population due to the influx of migrants. By 1986, it had overtaken Calcutta as the most populated Indian city. The city's secular fabric was torn in 1992, after large-scale Hindu-Muslim riots caused extensive losses to life and property. A few months later, on March 12, simultaneous bombings of the city's establishments by the underworld killed around three hundred. In 1995, the city was renamed Mumbai after the right wing Shiv Sena party came into power in Maharashtra, in keeping with their policy of renaming colonial institutions after historic local appellations. See also: Timeline of Mumbai events Geography
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