Korlai Fort

Korlai, Maharashtra, India

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Korlai Fort is a coastal Portuguese fort in Murud taluka of Raigad district, Maharashtra, built in 1521 on a small hill (Morro de Chaul) at the mouth of the Kundalika River to guard the Revdanda creek and serve as a companion to the fort at Chaul.

It stands about 295 feet high on a narrow, elongated hill roughly 1 km long and 100 feet wide, surrounded by the Arabian Sea on three sides, with a stubby land bridge to the south connecting it to Korlai village. The fort’s massive 2,828-foot-long and 8-foot-wide wall encloses an area divided into three by two lines of bastions, has 11 gates (four outside and seven inside) with Portuguese inscriptions, and once housed a church built in 1630 for the army, along with cannons parapets, a large rainwater cistern, and ruins of a magazine.

After initial conflict with the Ahmednagar sultanate, the Portuguese won the fort in 1594 but later destroyed much of it, leaving only the central tower and battery; the Marathas held it from 1739 to 1818, and today it is maintained alongside the Korlai Lighthouse, which visitors must pass through to access the fort.