Salsette (साष्टी) (
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
: Salsete, Marathi: Sashti (साष्टी)) is an island in
MaharashtraMaharashtra is a state located on the western coast of India. Maharashtra is a part of Western India. It is India's third largest state by area and second largest by population....
state on
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
's west coast. The metropolis of
MumbaiMumbai, formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city proper is the most-populous in the world, with approximately 14 million inhabitants. Along with the neighbouring suburbs of Navi Mumbai and Thane, it forms the world's 4th largest urban agglomeration, with around...
(formerly Bombay) and the city of
ThaneThane is a city in Maharashtra, India, part of the Mumbai Conurbation, northeastern suburb of Mumbai at the head of the Thane Creek. It is the administrative headquarters of Thane District. The city has an area of 147 km
2...
lie on this island, making it the
14th most populous island in the world.
Location
The present island was formerly made up of several smaller islands, which were joined together during the 19th and early 20th centuries to form a single island. It is bounded on the north by
Vasai CreekVasai Creek is an estuarine creek, one of the two main distributaries of the Ulhas River in Maharashtra state of western India. The Ulhas splits at the northeast corner of Salsette Island into its two main distributaries, Vasai Creek and Thane Creek...
, on the northeast by the
Ulhas RiverThe Ulhas River is a river of western India. It originates near Karjat in the Western Ghats Range, and flows westward through Raigad and Thane districts of Maharashtra between Kulgaon-Badlapur, north to Ulhasnagar and on to Kalyan, where it turns west to Thane...
, on the east by
Thane CreekThane Creek is part of the estuary of the Ulhas River in western India opening into Bombay Harbour. It comprises the area stretching from Mumbra Retibunder to the Mankhurd-Vashi Bridge. It has been recognised as an Important Bird Area by the Bombay Natural History Society, as it is home to...
and Bombay Harbour, and on the south and west by the
Arabian SeaThe Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui, the north-east point of Somalia, Socotra, Kanyakumari in India, and the western coast...
. The city of Mumbai lies on a peninsula on the southern end of the island, and Mumbai's suburbs cover much of the remainder of the island. The island contains Borivali National Park, also known as Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The city of Thane lies at the island's north-eastern corner, on Thane Creek. The coordinates are approximately 20° N and 72° E. Politically, most of the island falls into the municipality of Mumbai. The municipality is divided into two separate
districtsThe Indian state of Maharashtra came into existence on May 1, 1960 , initially with 28 districts. 7 new districts have been created since then and currently the number of districts in the state is 35...
, Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburbs. The northern portion of the island lies within Thane District, which extends across Vasai and Thane creeks onto the mainland.
History
The name
Sasashti (also shortened to
Sashti) means "sixty-six villages." Thought to be initially settled by people migrating from the original region of Sasashti/Salcette in Goa, island north to the seven Islands of Bombay as also named as Sasashti or Salcette after their original home. The Island city of Bombay was south of the Salcette Island and separated from it by the Mahim creek.These form the present City of Mumbai- originally
seven small islandsframe|right|The original islandsSeven islands were united to form the city of Mumbai , and part of the historic Old Bombay:# Isle of Bombay# Colaba# Old Woman's Island # Mahim# Mazagaon# Parel# Worli...
(Mahim, Bombay, Mazagaon, Parel, Colaba, Little Colaba, and Sion). The island of
TrombayTrombay is a Northeastern suburb in Mumbai, India, with Mankhurd as the closest railway station on the Harbour Line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway.-History:...
lay to the southeast of Sasashti though today much of the intervening swamps have been reclaimed as land.
109 Buddhist caves, including those at Kanheri, can be found on the island, and date from the end of the 2nd century. The island was ruled by a succession of Hindu kingdoms, the last of which to rule the islands were the
SilharasThe Hindu Silhara dynasty ruled the region around present-day Mumbai between 810 and 1240.They were split into three branches; one branch ruled North Konkan, the second South Konkan , while the third ruled what is now known as modern districts of Satara, Kolhapur and Belgaon between 940 to 1215...
. In 1343 the islands were annexed by the
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
Sultanate of
GujaratGujarat is the westernmost state in India. It is home to the Gujarati speaking people of India. The state encompasses major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization such as Lothal and Dholavira. Gujarat played an important role in the economic history of India throughout the history of India...
. In 1534 the
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
took the islands from Sultan
Bahadur Shah of GujaratQutb-ud-Din Bahadur Shah was a sultan of Gujarat Sultanate, a late medieval independent kingdom in India.-Early years:...
. Sashti was part of the northern province of
Portuguese IndiaPortuguese India was the aggregate of Portugal's colonial holdings in India.The government started in 1505, six years after the discovery of sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, with the nomination of the first Viceroy Francisco de Almeida, then settled at Kochi...
, which was governed from Baçaím (present-day Vasai) on the north shore of Vasai Creek. In 1661 the seven Bombay islets were ceded to
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
as part of the dowry of Catherine of Bragança to King
Charles II of EnglandCharles II was the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father King Charles I was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. The English Parliament did not proclaim Charles II king at this time. Instead they passed a statute making such a...
. Sashti remained in Portuguese hands. King Charles in turn leased the Bombay islets to the
British East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
in 1668 for £10 per year. The company found the deep harbour at Bombay eminently apposite, and the population rose from 10,000 in 1661 to 60,000 by 1675. In 1687, the East India Company transferred their headquarters there from
SuratSurat formerly known as Suryapur or Khubsoorat, is the eighth largest city in India. The city proper is the seventh most populous city in India and 49th in the world. Surat is the administrative capital of Surat district....
.
In 1737 Sasashti was captured by the
Maratha Marāthā has three related usages: within the Marathi speaking region it describes the dominant Maratha caste or to the Maratha and Kunbi castes together; outside Maharashtra it can refer to the entire regional population of Marathi-speaking people; historically, it describes the Maratha empire...
s, and most of the Portuguese northern province was ceded to the Marathas in 1739. The British occupied Sashti in 1774, which was formally ceded to the East India Company in the 1782
Treaty of SalbaiThe Treaty of Salbai was signed on May 17, 1782, by representatives of the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company after long negotiations to settle the outcome of the First Anglo-Maratha War. Under its terms, the Company retained control of Salsette and acquired guarantees that the...
.
In 1782 William Hornby, then Governor of
Bombay PresidencyThe Bombay Presidency was a former province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the British East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its...
, initiated the project of connecting the isles. The
Hornby VellardThe Hornby Vellard was a project to build a causeway uniting all seven islands of Bombay into a single island with a deep natural harbour. The project was started by the governor William Hornby in 1782 and all islands were linked by 1838...
was the first of the engineering projects, started in 1784, despite opposition from the directors of the East India Company. The cost of the
vellard was estimated at
Rs.The rupee is the common name for the currencies used in India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mauritius, and Seychelles; in Indonesia the unit of currency is known as the rupiah and in the Maldives the rufiyah, which are cognate words of Hindi rupiya...
100,000. The project gained momentum in 1817, and by 1845 the seven southern islands had been connected to form
Old BombayOld Bombay was used to refer to the area which was formed by the merging of the seven original islands of Mumbai, India. The term is now archaic and was used from the 19th century until the 1980s. The more widely used term today is just the word 'town'....
, with an area of 435 km². Railway viaducts and road bridges were built in the 19th century to connect Bombay island to Sashti, and Sashti to the mainland. These railway lines encouraged wealthier merchants to build villas on Sashti, and by 1901 the population of Sashti was 146,993, and became known as Greater Bombay. The channels separating Bombay and Trombay islands from Sashti Island were filled in the early 20th century.
Geography
See also: Geography of MumbaiMumbai is India's most populous city. It is located on Salsette Island off the coast of Maharashtra. Originally seven islands, they were merged in the 18th century to form one large island.- Hills :...
Parts of the island are hilly, although many of the hills were cut down and used to enlarge the island by filling in the shallows and to link the islands to one another. The highest point on the island is around 450 metres in the Borivali National Park, in the northern reaches of the island. This
National ParkA national park is a reserve of natural or semi-natural land, declared or owned by a national government, set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, and protected from most development...
is the world's biggest within city limits.
Geology
The island is located at the confluence of a number of fault lines. This makes the area
earthquakeAn earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph...
prone, up to a magnitude of 6. The island is mostly composed of black
basaltBasalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey.On Earth, most...
rock. Since it is along the sea coast, it also has a sandy belt on its western coast. The southern region of Old Bombay is mostly at sea level. However, the parts which were erstwhile shallows are below sea level. Many parts of the city are hilly.
Also worth noticing is the occurrence of Laterite soil and rocks at a point on this island.
Lakes
There are three major lakes on the island
Powai LakePowai Lake is an artificial lake, situated in the northern suburb of Mumbai, in the Powai valley, where a Powai village with cluster of huts existed...
,
Tulsi LakeTulsi Lake is a fresh water lake in northern Mumbai. It is stated to be the second largest lake in Mumbai and supplies part of the city’s potable water
[http://mumbai.clickindia.com/travel/tulsilake.html, Travel, Tulsi lake]...
and
Vihar LakeVihar Lake is located near Vihar village on the Mithi River within the precincts of the Borivali National Park, also called the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, in North Mumbai. When built in 1860 , it was considered as the largest lake in Mumbai in the Salsette group of islands. It is hemmed between...
. The latter two lakes supply part of the city's water requirements. Numerous other smaller ponds and lakes are also present in the
ThaneThane is a city in Maharashtra, India, part of the Mumbai Conurbation, northeastern suburb of Mumbai at the head of the Thane Creek. It is the administrative headquarters of Thane District. The city has an area of 147 km
2...
region. On the shores of the Powai lake lies the celebrated
Indian Institute of Technology BombayThe Indian Institute of Technology Bombay , popularly known as IIT Bombay or IITB, is an autonomous university located in Powai, in north central Mumbai . It is the second-oldest campus of the Indian Institutes of Technology system and the largest National Institute in the state of Maharashtra...
.
Rivers
Three small rivers, the Mithi (Mahim), Oshiwara and Dahisar, originate within the National Park, and empty into the Arabian Sea. The Mithi River originates from the Powai Lake. Vasai and Thane creeks are
estuarineAn estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries are thus subject to both marine influences, such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water; and riverine influences, such as flows of...
distributariesA distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. They are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributary is a tributary...
of the
Ulhas RiverThe Ulhas River is a river of western India. It originates near Karjat in the Western Ghats Range, and flows westward through Raigad and Thane districts of Maharashtra between Kulgaon-Badlapur, north to Ulhasnagar and on to Kalyan, where it turns west to Thane...
.
Creeks
A number of saline or brackish creeks extend inland from the coastline. The Mahim creek separates the city from the suburbs in the west, and the Sion Creek in the east (Sion creek no longer exists). Further north on the western coast, the Oshiwara river empties into the Malad (or Marvé) Creek and the Dahisar River into the Gorai Creek. The eastern waterfront too, has many small creeks.
Wetlands
The small southern part of the eastern waterfront of the island forms the Bombay harbour. North of this region lie vast amounts of protected
wetlandA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, and bogs, among others. The water found in wetlands can be saltwater, freshwater,...
s, home to migratory birds. The northern, north western part of the island and parts of Mahim River also have government protected marshlands. These swampy regions form massive and dense
mangroveMangroves are trees and shrubs that grow in saline coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S. The saline conditions tolerated by various species range from brackish water, through pure seawater , to water of over twice the salinity of ocean seawater,...
forests.
Beaches
The western coast of
MumbaiMumbai, formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city proper is the most-populous in the world, with approximately 14 million inhabitants. Along with the neighbouring suburbs of Navi Mumbai and Thane, it forms the world's 4th largest urban agglomeration, with around...
has numerous beaches. The best known is the Girgaum-Chowpatty Beach. Other well known beaches are Dadar Beach, Juhu Beach, Mahim Beach, Gorai Beach, Manori Beach and Worli Beach; of which Juhu, Manori and Gorai Beaches lies on west cost of Sashti (साष्टी) island.