Mumbai

Mumbai, which used to be called Bombay, is the most populous city of India and the fourth most populous city in the world. The city itself has an estimated 12 million inhabitants and the metropolitan area boasts more than 20 million people. To put this in perspective, there are more people living in greater Mumbai than there are in the entire continent of Australia! How does Mumbai’s population compare to your city? 

Location, Location, Location!
Mumbai’s location on India’s Western coast helped make it the great city that it is. Mumbai situated in a delta region, namely where the Ulhas River meets the Arabian Sea. In agrarian times, this meant that this was a good farming region because of the mineral-rich soil. (Think about all the other great civilizations and cities that developed on delta regions: Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Nile Valley…). 

Mumbai also has a naturally deep port to compliment the river; waterways make it an ideal trade hub because it is easy to transport heavy goods over water. Goods come from all over the world by sea and is loaded onto other boats or trains to be dispersed inland. Indian goods make the opporsite trip.

Hong Kong and Singapore have very deep ports, which helped make them important trade hubs and very wealthy city-states. It is not surprising that Mumbai became (and remains) the commercial capital of India and that people from all over the world has come—throughout the centuries—to make money in this properous city. This is evidenced by looking at the people and listening to its many languages on its busy streets. (Did you know India has 16 official languages? Mumbai is a polyglot, or multi-lingual, society. Most people speak a colloquial form of Hindi, blended with local languages and also British English.)

Today, Mumbai is home to national banks and stock exchanges as well as many other industries. Bollywood, India’s film industry, is the largest in the world, far exceeding
Hollywood productions in number.