QUILON  , a seaport of

India, on the Malabar coast, in the state of Travancore . Pop . (1901) 15,691 . Quilon enjoys great facilities of water communication, and has an active export trade in timber, coco-nuts, ginger, pepper, &c . The palace of the maharaja of Travancore stands on the bank of Quilon lake, a beautiful sheet of water . Besides being on a projecting point, Quilon is rendered still more unsafe to approach by the bank of hard ground called the Tangasseri reef, which extends some distance to the south-west and west of the point and along the coast to the northward . There is good anchorage, however, in a bight about 3 M. from the fort . Quilon is one of the oldest towns on the Malabar coast, and continued to be a place of considerable importance down to the beginning of the 16th century . It is now the headquarters of the Travancore army, with a subsidiary battalion . Cotton weaving and spinning and the manufacture of tiles are the chief industries . It is the terminus of a railway across the hills from Tinnevelly . Adjoining Quilon is the British village of Tangasseri, formerly a Portuguese and then a Dutch settlement, which is administered with Anjengo; pop .

(1901) 1733 .