Kannur

Kannur, long known to English speakers as Cannanore, is a city and municipal corporation on the Malabar Coast of Kerala, India, and the administrative headquarters of Kannur district. It lies about 280 kilometres north of Kochi and 146 kilometres south of Mangalore, on the coast of the Laccadive Sea, and is the fifth largest city in Kerala. The 2011 census counted 232,486 people in the area governed by the Kannur Municipal Corporation, which was upgraded from a municipality in 2015; the municipality itself dates from 1866, among the first modern municipalities in the state. In the late medieval period the city and the Laccadive Islands came under the Arakkal kingdom, and the area was the seat of Kolathunadu, one of the four most important dynasties on the Malabar Coast. The ancient port of Naura named in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is identified with Kannur. The city is known today for its long beaches, the Portuguese-built St. Angelo Fort and Kerala's only cantonment board.