Roman ships once sailed to Kerala loaded with gold to buy pepper
Sumerian records suggest Kerala was shipping spices around 3000 BCE, and by the last centuries BCE Roman vessels were arriving at the port of Muziris laden with gold to swap for black pepper. Rome's yearly trade with this strip of southern Indian coast has been estimated at 50 million sesterces.
Kerala is a narrow band of coastal plain on India's Malabar Coast, squeezed between the Western Ghats and the Laccadive Sea. It covers 38,863 square kilometres and had 33 million people in 2011. The state was formed on 1 November 1956 by uniting Malayalam-speaking areas, and after a long campaign its official name became Keralam on 25 August 2026.
The oldest written mention comes from a 3rd-century-BCE rock edict of the emperor Ashoka, which names Keralaputra, son of the Cheras. Theories about the name vary: land of the Cheras, land of hill slopes, or, from the Malayalam words for coconut tree and land, land of coconuts. Legend offers another origin, in which the sage Parashurama hurled his axe across the ocean and the water pulled back to reveal the coast. The Onam festival marks the yearly return of the just king Mahabali, who in myth ruled from Kerala.
Trade shaped the region's story. Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians came for spices during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. The Chera dynasty grew rich through maritime commerce with China, West Asia, Greece and Rome, and a Roman road map, the Tabula Peutingeriana, records a temple of Augustus in the area. One early navigator, Eudoxus of Cyzicus, rode the monsoon winds there around 118 or 166 BCE. In the 15th century the spice trade lured the Portuguese, starting European colonisation in India. Rock engravings in the Edakkal caves go back to around 6000 BCE.
Modern Kerala leads India on several measures: the highest Human Development Index, literacy of 96.2% in 2018, life expectancy of 77.3 years, and 1,084 women for every 1,000 men. Many Malayalis moved to the Gulf states during the boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, and their remittances prop up the economy. Pepper and natural rubber remain major products, alongside a 595-kilometre coastline that supports 1.1 million people in fishing.
Source: Kerala
