Malegaon

Malegaon is a city in Nashik District in the state of Maharashtra, India, set at the meeting of the Girna river and the Mosam river, which runs through the middle of the city and divides it into two parts. It lies about 280 kilometres northeast of Mumbai at an elevation of roughly 438 metres, on the old road linking Mumbai and Agra, where a small junction known as Maliwadi, the hamlet of gardeners, once stood. The city grew around Malegaon Fort, which Naro Shankar Raje Bahadur began building in 1740 with craftsmen brought from Surat and northern India; once the fort was done the craftsmen settled beside it. Malegaon is best known for its power loom cloth industry, and the farms around it produce onions and pomegranates. The 2011 census of India counted 481,228 people in the city, a majority of them Muslim, with Hindu, Buddhist and Jain minorities, and teaching is offered in Urdu, Marathi and English.