Place · city

Pondicherry

Also known as Puducherry

Pondicherry, officially Puducherry, is a coastal city in south-eastern India, south of Chennai. Founded as a French trading post by François Martin in 1674, it became the capital of French India and, under Dupleix in the 1740s, the base of France's bid for power in southern India. It was transferred to India in 1954 and is the capital of the Union Territory of Puducherry.

Pondicherry
Image: Karthik Easvur · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 3 state histories

Gingee NayaksFrench IndiaRestored Hanthawaddy Kingdom

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Pondicherry. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pondicherry
MLA
“Pondicherry.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pondicherry. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Pondicherry.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pondicherry.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Pondicherry’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pondicherry (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻