Kollam Port

Kollam Port is one of India's 20 major ports situated from Downtown Kollam (formerly Quilon). It is the second largest port in Kerala by volume of cargo handled and facilities. Located on the south west coast of India, under the name of Quilon Port it became one of the country's most important trade hubs from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries.It was founded by Mar Abo at Thangasseri in 825 as an alternative to reopening the inland sea port (kore-ke-ni kollam) near Backare, to the Romans and Greeks and Thondi to the Tamils. V. Nagam Aiya in his Travancore State Manual records that in 822, two Nestorian Bishops Mar Sabor and Mar Proth, settled in Quilon with their followers. Two years later the Malabar Era began (824) and Quilon became the premier city of the Malabar Coast region ahead of Travancore and CochinHistoryKollam was a port city of the Chera Dynasty until the formation of the independent Venad kingdom, of which it became the capital. Prior to that, Kollam was considered one of the four early entrepots in the global sea trade around the 13th century, along with Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, the Chinese city of Quanzhou, and Malacca in the Malaysian archipelago.