50 Fun Facts About Kerala

Which legendary king's annual homecoming, granted by Vishnu's Vamana avatar, does Kerala celebrate at Onam?

Mahabali was a generous asura king banished to the netherworld by Vamana, who let him return once a year to visit his people. That yearly visit is the harvest festival of Onam.

Kerala Piravi, the state's formation day, falls on the same date as Karnataka Rajyotsava; which date is it?

1 November 1956 was the day the States Reorganisation Act redrew India along language lines, creating Kerala and enlarging Mysore State (now Karnataka) into a single Kannada-speaking state at the same stroke.

Which explorer died at Cochin on Christmas Eve 1524 and was first buried in the city's St Francis Church?

Vasco da Gama caught malaria three months into his third stay in India, and his remains were shipped back to Lisbon in 1539. The church still shows his empty tomb slab.

Which apostle, by tradition, landed on the Kerala coast in 52 AD and founded the state's Syrian Christian community?

Thomas is said to have stepped ashore at the ancient spice port of Muziris, near present-day Pattanam, which is why Kerala's oldest churches call themselves Saint Thomas Christians.

Kerala was the first Indian state to run a government what, launched in 1967 after private operators were banned?

Kerala State Lotteries began in 1967 as the first government-run lottery in India, the same year the state outlawed every private lottery. Its draws are still a daily fixture across the state.

Which fruit, also the national fruit of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, is Kerala's official state fruit?

Jackfruit is the state fruit of both Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and Kerala stages whole festivals in its honour. A single tree can carry fruits weighing tens of kilograms.

Which Kerala Tourism tagline, now a global superbrand, sells a state National Geographic Traveler called a paradise?

God's Own Country was coined for Kerala Tourism's advertising and grew into a global superbrand, with the backwaters and ecotourism as its poster images.

Which city, home to ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and India's first IT park, Technopark, is Kerala's capital?

Thiruvananthapuram was officially called Trivandrum until 1991, when the government reinstated the city's original name. It is built on seven hills beside the sea near India's southern tip.

Which Kerala dance-drama paints its noble heroes' faces green in a style called pachcha and its worst villains red?

Kathakali's seven make-up types code every character: pachcha green with coral-red lips marks sages and heroes such as Krishna and Arjuna, while a fully red face and beard signals deep evil.

Which shrine in Kerala's capital had its secret vaults opened and inventoried in 2011 on the Supreme Court's orders?

Padmanabhaswamy's largest chamber, Vault B, has never been opened and was reckoned to hold 12,000 crore rupees of wealth in 1880s terms. Sangam poets already called it the Golden Temple.

Which Kerala martial art, taught on red sand mixed with healing herbs, grew from 11th–12th-century battlefield combat?

Kalaripayattu took shape on Kerala's 11th–12th-century battlefields; the British banned it after 1805, closing most training grounds until a 1920s revival.

Which Marxist became Kerala's first chief minister in 1957, heading India's first elected communist government?

E. M. S. Namboodiripad's 1957 ministry was dismissed by the central government in 1959 after the 'liberation struggle' protests, and in 1964 he led the faction that broke away from the CPI to form the CPI(M).

Which author set her 1997 Booker Prize winner, The God of Small Things, in the Kerala village of Ayemenem?

Arundhati Roy wrote the novel as her debut after years in film, and its twins Estha and Rahel grow up amid the caste politics of 1960s Kerala.

Which Kerala sprinter missed the 1984 Olympic 400 m hurdles bronze by one hundredth of a second?

P. T. Usha, the 'Queen of Indian track and field', ran 55.42 seconds in that Los Angeles final after a rival's false start broke her rhythm on the restart.

Which actor played Georgekutty, a cable-TV operator who outwits the police, in the 2013 Malayalam hit Drishyam?

Mohanlal's Drishyam was the all-time blockbuster of Malayalam cinema on release, and he returned as Georgekutty in a 2021 sequel that premiered on Amazon Prime.

Neelakurinji, the shrub whose mass blooms turn Kerala's high hills blue, flowers how often?

Neelakurinji blooms only once every 12 years, a cycle that gave the Nilgiris their name, 'blue mountains'; different hillsides run on different clocks, so Eravikulam flowered in 2018 and Chokramudi near Munnar in 2026.

From which coastal village near Kerala's capital did India launch its first rocket, a Nike-Apache, in 1963?

Thumba was picked because it sits almost on Earth's magnetic equator, and the first rockets were assembled in a local school while the bishop lent his church's prayer hall.

Which peak in Eravikulam National Park, at 2,695 m, is the highest point in India south of the Himalayas?

Anamudi means 'elephant head' in Malayalam, and no other peak in India stands so far from any higher ground, giving it the greatest topographic isolation in the land.

Which Kerala backwater town, laced with canals, did Lord Curzon call the 'Venice of the East'?

Alappuzha, anglicised as Alleppey, is the gateway to the backwaters, and its district is best known for the houseboat routes that link it to Kumarakom.

Which deity, son of Shiva and Vishnu's Mohini form, draws 10 to 15 million pilgrims a year to Sabarimala?

Ayyappan's hilltop shrine is among the largest annual pilgrimage sites in the world, and many devotees still walk the 61 km forest route from Erumely that he is believed to have taken.

Which river, Kerala's longest at 244 km, is called the 'Lifeline of Kerala' for the hydropower it generates?

The Periyar feeds the Idukki reservoir, Kerala's largest hydropower project, and a quarter of the state's industries stand on its banks; a great flood of the river in 1341 is blamed for silting up the ancient port of Muziris.

What is the banana-leaf vegetarian feast of 24 to 28 dishes, served as lunch at Onam and Vishu, called?

Sadya dishes traditionally contain no onion or garlic, and they are served in a set order, chips and pickles first and payasam last.

Which tea-plantation hill station at 1,600 m takes its name from the confluence of three rivers?

Munnar's estates were bought by Tata and Finlay in 1964, and they opened India's first instant-tea factory there.

Which city's Pooram, devised by Sakthan Thampuran in the 1790s, climaxes with rival elephant lines swapping parasols?

Thrissur's Pooram pits the Paramekkavu and Thiruvambady temples against each other in the Kudamattam, 15 caparisoned elephants a side standing face to face while their parasol-bearers switch umbrellas.

Which former seat of the Zamorins became India's first UNESCO City of Literature in 2023?

Kozhikode, the Calicut of old maps, was a kingdom whose Zamorins kept a 10,000-strong Nair bodyguard, and a 15th-century Russian traveller called it a port for the whole Indian sea.

Kerala was created in 1956 by joining Travancore-Cochin with the Malabar district of which former state?

Madras gave up Malabar and took Kanyakumari district and part of Shenkottai in exchange, which is why Travancore's old southern tip now lies in Tamil Nadu.

Which Kerala town's Cheraman Juma Masjid, dated by legend to 629 CE, is claimed as the first mosque in India?

Kodungallur's mosque is said to have been built by Malik Bin Dinar, though some scholars date the present structure to the 14th–15th century.

Which Jew Town synagogue of 1568, floored with hand-painted Chinese tiles, is the Commonwealth's oldest still in use?

Paradesi is the only one of the seven synagogues of Old Cochin's Jew Town still in use, lit by Belgian glass chandeliers beneath an 18th-century clock tower.

Mattancherry Palace in Kochi is called the Dutch Palace, but which power built it around 1545 for the king of Cochin?

Portuguese builders gave the palace to a Kingdom of Cochin that soon became their vassal, and its rooms hold Kerala murals and portraits of the Kochi royal line.

Which Kerala district, the one that contains Kochi, became India's first fully literate district in 1990?

Ernakulam hit 100 per cent literacy a year before all of Kerala was declared fully literate in 1991, and Kochi has the highest literacy rate of any Indian city of over two million people.

Which Ezhava reformer consecrated a Shiva idol at Aruvippuram in 1888 and preached 'one caste, one religion, one god'?

Sree Narayana Guru told objecting Brahmins 'this is not a Brahmin Shiva but an Ezhava Shiva', and Gandhi's 1925 visit to his Sivagiri ashram during the Vaikom Satyagraha left a deep mark on the Mahatma's thinking on caste.

Which ruler of Kottayam in north Kerala fought the East India Company from the Wayanad forests until killed in 1805?

Pazhassi Raja, the 'Lion of Kerala', waged the Cotiote War that makes him one of India's earliest freedom fighters, and died in a gunfight at Mavila Thodu on the Karnataka border.

Which Palakkad rainforest, stronghold of the lion-tailed macaque, became a national park after protests stopped a dam?

Silent Valley's hydroelectric scheme on the Kunthipuzha river fell to the 1970s Save Silent Valley campaign, India's fiercest environmental fight of the decade, and the park opened in 1985 with a memorial to Indira Gandhi.

Which Kerala rice-growing region, one of the few places on Earth farmed below sea level, is the state's 'rice bowl'?

Kuttanad's paddies lie 1.2 to 3 metres below sea level on land reclaimed from the backwaters, the lowest altitude anywhere in India.

Which Kerala-born diplomat became India's first Dalit president in 1997 and the first sitting president to vote?

K. R. Narayanan grew up in Uzhavoor in Travancore, and in 1998 he became the first Indian president to cast a vote while in office, a precedent he set deliberately.

Which snake-boat race on Punnamada Lake began with an impromptu 1952 contest rowed for India's first prime minister?

Nehru Trophy's silver prize is shaped like a snake boat and bears Jawaharlal Nehru's signature; he had climbed aboard the winning boat, Nadubhagam Chundan, and ridden it to shore.

Which lake, India's longest at 96.5 km, has Kochi's port islands at one end and Kumarakom's bird sanctuary on its shore?

Vembanad's wetland system covers more than 2,000 square kilometres, the largest in India, and Willingdon Island in its Kochi stretch carries the port.

Which ritual art of north Kerala has a performer crowned with a sacred headgear, the mudi, as a deity enters his body?

Theyyam, also called Kaliyattam, belongs to Kannur and the far north of Kerala, and the dancer drinks toddy to suppress his own consciousness and make room for the god's.

Which Malayalam star won a National Film Award for Best Actor as B. R. Ambedkar in Jabbar Patel's English-Hindi biopic?

The Ambedkar role brought Mammootty the third of his National Film Awards for Best Actor, and it is rated among the finest performances of his career.

Which poet founded Kerala Kalamandalam, inaugurated in 1930, the academy that rescued the state's classical stage arts?

Vallathol formed the society with a fellow art promoter in 1927 on public donations, and it settled at Cheruthuruthy near Shoranur in 1936.

Which Ramu Kariat adaptation of a Thakazhi novel was the first South Indian film to win the President's Gold Medal?

Chemmeen, released in 1966 with songs by the composer Salil Chowdhury, took the 1965 medal for Best Feature Film with its story of a fishing village on the Kerala coast.

Which 16th-century poet, called the father of modern Malayalam, recomposed the Ramayana as the Adhyatma Ramayanam?

Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan's title simply meant 'father of letters', the generic name for any village schoolteacher in premodern Kerala, and no original compositions are attributed to him.

Which Travancore maharaja issued the 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation opening the state's Hindu temples to all castes?

Chithira Thirunal was the last ruling maharaja of Travancore, and Kerala still observes the proclamation's anniversary as a social reformation day.

Which Travancore king beat the Dutch East India Company at Colachel in 1741 and made its captured commander his general?

Marthanda Varma's win at Colachel ended Dutch ambitions in Kerala, and Eustachius De Lannoy went on to modernise the Travancore army and fight his later campaigns.

Which Kerala district's arch dam, among Asia's tallest, spans a gorge between the Kuravan and Kurathi hills?

Idukki's double-curvature arch dam was sited after a tribal chief, Kolumban, led two hunters to the gorge in 1922, and the 1976 project remains Kerala's largest hydropower source.

Which Wayanad rock shelter near Sultan Bathery holds petroglyphs dated to at least 6,000 BCE?

Edakkal Caves are not true caves but a 30-foot-deep fissure left when a slab split from the main rock, and the carvings point to a Neolithic settlement in the hills.

Which Pathanamthitta village makes a GI-tagged mirror from a secret copper-tin alloy rather than silvered glass?

Aranmula's kannadi is a first-surface mirror that reflects from the polished metal itself, and it earned its geographical indication tag in 2004–05.

Which Pongala festival in Kerala's capital holds the Guinness record for the largest annual gathering of women?

Attukal's 2009 Pongala drew 2.5 million women cooking rice offerings in earthen pots around the temple, and the only men allowed near are police, priests and temple staff.

Which northernmost district of Kerala is nicknamed Sapta Bhasha Sangama Bhumi, the land of seven languages?

Kasaragod joined Kerala in 1956 as a taluk carved out of South Canara, and its name is said to come from Kannada words for the nux-vomica tree and a rampart.

Which aircraft carrier, the first ever built in India, was constructed at Cochin Shipyard and commissioned in 2022?

INS Vikrant takes its name from India's first carrier, a British-built ship of 1961, and it was the first warship Cochin Shipyard had ever built.