False Point is a low headland in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

. It is located in the

Kendrapara district Kendrapara District is an administrative district of Odisha state in eastern India. The town of Kendrapara is the district headquarters. Kendrapara District is situated in the eastern portion of the state, and is bounded on the north by Bhadrak ...

of Odisha,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The point derives its name from the circumstance that vessels proceeding up the Bay of Bengal frequently mistook it for Point Palmyras, less than a degree farther north. A lighthouse is situated 2 km inland from the point, at a place which screens it from the southern

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

.False Point (Batighar) Lighthouse - Wikimapia
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History

False Point is also the name of a harbor in the area. It was reported by the famine commissioners in 1867 to be the best harbour on the coast of India from the Hooghly to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

. The anchorage is safe, roomy and completely landlocked, but large vessels are obliged to lie out at some distance from its mouth in an exposed roadstead. The capabilities of False Point as an anchorage remained long unknown, and it was only in 1860 that the port was opened. It was rapidly developed, owing to the construction of the Odisha canals. Two navigable channels lead inland across the

Mahanadi The Mahanadi is a major river in East Central India. It drains an area of around and has a total length of . Mahanadi is also known for the Hirakud Dam. The river flows through the states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha and finally merged with Bay ...

delta and connect the port with

Cuttack Cuttack (, or officially Kataka ) in Odia is the former capital and the second largest city in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the headquarters of the Cuttack district. The name of the city is an anglicised form of ''Kataka'' which literally ...

city. The trade of False Point was chiefly with other Indian harbours, but a large export trade in rice and oil-seeds sprung up with

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...

, the

French colonies From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over , the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuri ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. False Point was also a regular port of call for Anglo-Indian coasting steamers. Its capabilities were first appreciated during the Orissa famine of 1866, when it afforded almost the only means by which supplies of rice could be thrown into the province.

References

External links

True story of False Point - Spectrum May 9, 2010
{{EB1911 article with no significant updates Headlands of India Mahanadi River Kendrapara district

History

See also

References

External links