COCANADA, or COCONADA  , a town of British India, in the Godavari district of Madras, on the coast in the extreme north of the Godavari delta, about 315 M . N. of Madras . Pop . (1901) 48,096, showing an increase of 18 % in the decade . As the administrative headquarters of the district, and the chief port on the Coromandel coast after Madras, Cocanada was formerly of considerable importance, but its shipping trade has declined, owing to the silting of the anchorage, and to the construction of the railway . It is connected by navigable channels with the canal system of the Godavari delta, and by a branch line with Samalkot on the East Coast railway . The anchorage is an open roadstead, with two lighthouses . The chief exports are rice,cotton, sugar and oilseeds . Mills have been established for cleaning rice . The town contains a second-grade college, a high school, and a literary association .