Chaul: Is a former Portuguese settlement, located 40 km south of Mumbai. Portuguese settled here in 1522, and this area was later taken by the Marathas. Visitors can find fortresses, churches, ancient Buddhist caves, temples and ruins of an old Portuguese palace here.
Chaul is a former city of Portuguese India, now in ruins. It lies 60 km south of Mumbai, in the Raigad district of Maharashtra state in western India.
In 1508, the Mamluks of Egypt, allied to the Sultanate of Gujarat defeated the Portuguese in the Battle of Chaul. The Portuguese in Chaul first settlement took place in 1521 with the construction of the first fort on the south bank of the river Kundalika. In October 1531, the Portuguese built a new square stone fort called Santa María del Castillo, containing a church and housing for 120 men. The town developed around the fort, but a treaty of 1558 excludes the fortification of the city. The city was destroyed in a siege 1570-1571 by the Nizam Shahi Sultan of Ahmadnagar, but signed a treaty that lifted the state of siege, and the city was rebuilt and surrounded by ramparts and bastions. A strong (strong Korlai) was built in the Morro de Chaul, a rocky promontory on the north side of the river, opposite the city. The city withstood several attacks, and their defense works were extended in 1613.
Chaul was part of the Northern Province of Portuguese India, which in the mid 17th century extended for 100 kilometers along the coast of current Maharashtra and Gujarat, from Chaul in southern Daman in the north. The headquarters of the northern province was in Baçaim (modern Vasai) north of Bombay.
Over the centuries later 17th and early 18th Portuguese India economically and politically diminished, and Chaul lost its former importance. As the power of the Mughal Empire declined in the 18th century, the Marathas expanded their control of the central and western India. The Kalyan Portuguese colony was captured by the Marathas in 1720, and in 1737 General Maratha Angria began a concerted campaign to capture the remaining Portuguese territories. Chaul and Morro de Chaul came under siege in March 1739, but the siege was lifted in October. After the capture of Baçaim in 1740, a peace treaty was signed, and the September 18, 1740, Chaul was ceded by a treaty with the Marathas. The city was later abandoned and left in ruins.
The Korlai village, near the ruins of Chaul, remains the home of Portuguese Creole speakers.