Thrissur

Thrissur is a city in the Indian state of Kerala, built around a 65 acre hillock topped by the Vadakkumnathan temple, with 315,957 residents at the 2011 census and a metropolitan population of about 3.72 million, Kerala's third largest urban agglomeration after Kochi and Kozhikode. Once capital of the Kingdom of Cochin and a historic point of contact for Assyrian, Greek, Persian, Arab, Roman, Portuguese, Dutch and English traders, it was transformed into a major commercial center under Maharaja Sakthan Thampuran between 1769 and 1805; known as the cultural capital of Kerala, it hosts the Thrissur Pooram, one of the state's largest temple festivals, and a substantial gold jewelry and banking industry.