Cochin, India

Cochin is both a city and a former state (known as Princely State) in southwest India on the Arabian Sea. Now part of Kerala state, the region of Cochin has one of the highest population densities in India. Agriculture is the chief economic activity. Ernakulam was the former capital and Kochi (formerly Cochin) the chief port. Thought of as the finest port south of Bombay, Kochi, with its naval base and shipbuilding industry, is the primary training center for the Indian Navy. After Vasco da Gama visited the city in 1502, the Portuguese established a settlement. The Dutch captured it in 1663 and the British in 1795. In adjoining Mattancheri there is a small community of descendants of Jews expelled from Portugal in the 16th century, thought to be the oldest Jewish enclave in India. India is a large, triangular-shaped country in southern Asia, buttressed by the long sweep of the Himalaya in the north and protruding into the Indian Ocean in the south. It is bordered by Pakistan to the northwest, China, Nepal and Bhutan to the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. Sri Lanka is the teardrop-shaped island hanging off its southern tip. India covers a land area of some 1,281,930 square miles (3,287,000 square kilometers), though disputed borders with Pakistan and China make this figure somewhat arbitrary; it still remains that India is the seventh largest country in the world. The city is situated at the northern end of a peninsula, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) long and less than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) wide. Kochi's proximity to the equator along with its coastal location results in little seasonal temperature variation, with moderate to high levels of humidity. Annual temperatures range between 68–95 °F (20 to 35 °C) with the record high being 96 °F (35 °C), and record low 63 °F (17 °C). Kochi as Cochin in known nowadays is one of the principal seaports of India and the main deep water harbor South of Mumbai.