Mattancherry

Where spice trading, religious migration and old warehouses still meet.

Mattancherry is a historic ward of Kochi, and it lies just south of Fort Kochi. It holds the lanes known as Jew Town and sits about 9 km south-west of the city centre. A Water Metro station on Jew Town Road connects it to High Court Terminal, on the line that runs through Willingdon Island.

Jew Street is known for its spice trade, handicrafts and antique shops. The shops show vintage photographs, Chinese urns, door frames, and glass and ceramic goods, and colonial-era buildings line the street. Jew Town holds the Paradesi Synagogue and Mattancherry Palace, and the two share a wall. The quarter is also home to Konkani and Gujarati families, and its Gujarati street is a cultural icon for Keralite Gujaratis.

The Dutch took over Mattancherry in 1663. Jew Town is where the only international pepper stock exchange in the world still functions. The 2011 census counted 10,144 people in Mattancherry.

Did you know

Mattancherry Palace, commonly called the Dutch Palace, is actually Portuguese: it was constructed around 1550 and presented as a gift to the Rajah of Cochin. It became associated with the Dutch only after they renovated and altered it more than a century later.
Under ancient Cochin sumptuary laws, ordinary citizens were forbidden from building houses of stone, brick, or tile. Their dwellings were restricted to mud walls and thatched leaf roofs; only royal palaces and religious temples had the privilege of stone masonry and tiled roofs. Moorish merchants were sometimes allowed stone walls solely to secure their trade goods.
In 1854, the local British-influenced government established one of the region’s first English schools at Mattancherry, specifically to educate Jewish children.
Under the ancient laws of Cochin, citizens could be impaled alive for selling cows to Europeans. The punishment reflected the force of local religious customs and the friction between the native administration and early European traders.
Ancient Cochin’s legal system prescribed execution by an iron hook driven through the chin for low-caste murderers, who were suspended until they died. No death sentence could be carried out until the condemned person personally acknowledged its justice; if they refused, torture was legally applied to convince them.
In a report from 1793, the Rajah of Cochin described the standard punishment for minor thieves: after six months to a year in prison, a portion of their flesh or their nose was surgically removed before release, leaving a permanent physical mark of the crime.
The 2011 census counted 10,144 people in Mattancherry.
The Mattancherry Water Metro station is on Jew Town Road and is connected with High Court Terminal by water.
Konkanis and Gujaratis live in Mattancherry alongside the Cochin and Paradesi Jews, and the Gujarati street is a cultural icon for Keralite Gujaratis.
The Dutch took over Mattancherry in 1663.
The only international pepper stock exchange in the world still functions in Jew Town, Mattancherry.
Jew Street is known for its spice trade, handicrafts and antique shops, and its shops display vintage photographs and Chinese urns.
Mattancherry is a historic ward of Kochi, about 9 km south-west of the city centre and just south of Fort Kochi.