Location, Climate, and Economy

Bombay lies midway along the west coast of India on the Arabian Sea, just south of the Tropic of Cancer. Its location ensures warm temperatures year-round, ranging from 75°  F (24°  C) to 86°  F (30°  C). Humidity and rainfall provide the major variations in the climate. From early November to early March, humidity is low, skies are blue, and the weather is comfortable. From March to early June, however, very high humidity combines with somewhat higher temperatures to produce the most uncomfortable weather of the year. The southwest monsoon, from June to September, brings slightly cooler temperatures but also torrents of rain.

Bombay possesses one of the finest harbors in the world. This and its location—facing Africa, the Middle East, and Europe—have made it a major port city that normally handles more than one third of India's foreign trade. These trading activities—together with such diverse industries as oil refining, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, engineering and machinery, and cotton textiles—have attracted a wide variety of peoples to the city.

People and Culture

Greater Bombay, which includes the historic center of the city on Bombay Island and its nearby communities, has a population of more than 12 million squeezed into an area of only 438 square miles (1,134 square kilometers). Originally, Bombay's site consisted of seven small basaltic lava islands. These islands are now connected by reclaimed land to one another and to the much larger Salsette Island to the north, but each still represents a distinctive neighborhood or section of the city.

Bombay has a great diversity of languages and religions. Marathi is the dominant language. Other important languages are Hindi and Urdu. English is the language for business, trade, manufacturing, education, and politics.

Over two thirds of the people are Hindus. There are important minorities of Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Jains. Bombay also has the world's largest community of Parsis (Zoroastrians), a highly educated Western-oriented group that is prominent in business and professional affairs.

Bombay's diversity is further reflected in the cultural life of the city, with its many museums, theaters, libraries, and galleries. Cricket, soccer, and field hockey are popular sports. Among the attractions that draw thousands of tourists to Bombay each year are the Hanging Gardens, where trees and bushes are trimmed into realistic or fantastic shapes; Chowpatty Beach, where Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru held political meetings; Taraporavala Aquarium, India's only such facility; and the Nehru Planetarium. North of the city are the Kanheri Caves, site of an ancient Buddhist university. Elephanta Island in the harbor is famous for its 8th- and 9th-century cave temples.

The University of Bombay was established in 1857. Research institutions include the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Royal Asiatic Library, and the Haffkine Institute, world famous for research on poisonous reptiles and tropical diseases.

History

The city is said to derive its name from Mumbai Devi, a Hindu goddess, although some claim that Bombay is a corruption of the Portuguese bom baia, meaning “good harbor.” Prior to the establishment of a Portuguese trading post in 1534, the islands were inhabited only by fishermen living in scattered hamlets. The Portuguese did not value the site as much as Goa, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the south, and they ceded Bombay to England in 1661 as part of the dowry transferred at the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to the English king Charles II.

A large fort, called the Castle, was completed in 1717. The first dock facilities were opened by 1750. Growth was steady, as befitted a city housing the headquarters of the British East India Company (1672–1858). The greatest period of growth, however, occurred in the 1860s. The American Civil War cut off the supply of Southern cotton to British textile mills, and the mill owners turned to western India for their raw material. Somewhat earlier, in 1851, the Indian cotton textile industry itself had been born in Bombay. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made Bombay even more important as a trading center. The building of railways in the 1860s and 1870s gave Bombay direct connections to all the other major points throughout the country.

Bombay has seen a number of catastrophes. The most notable were the Great Fire of 1803, which destroyed almost three quarters of the city; the devastating epidemic of bubonic plague in 1896; and the harbor explosion of April 14, 1944, when a munitions ship blew up and leveled 300 acres (120 hectares) of docks and warehouses. (See also India.) Population (2001), 11,914,400.