Bharuch

Bharuch is a city at the mouth of the Narmada River in Gujarat, in the western part of India, and the administrative headquarters of Bharuch District. The site has been inhabited since antiquity, and the city was a shipbuilding centre and seaport on the pre-compass coastal trade routes, a terminus for the spice and silk trade between East and West that used the monsoon winds. It was known to the Greeks, the Parthians, the Romans and the Chinese. The Narmada gave it inland access to central and northern India and its sheltered position on the Gulf of Khambhat suited a transshipment port. Today it lies close to large industrial estates and is sometimes called the chemical capital of India. The 2011 census counted 148,391 people.