French Settlements in India Établissements français dans l'Inde (French) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1664–1954 | |||||||||||
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 French India (shaded in white) after 1815 | |||||||||||
| Status | Colony of France (1664–1946) Overseas Territory of France (1946–1954) | ||||||||||
| Capital | Pondichéry | ||||||||||
| Common languages | French (de jure)[1] Bengali Malayalam Tamil Telugu | ||||||||||
| Government | Colonial administration | ||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||
• 1668–1673 | François Caron (first) [2] | ||||||||||
• 1954 | Georges Escaragueil[3] | ||||||||||
| Legislature | Representative Assembly of French India | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• First French East India Company Commissioner of Surat | 1664 | ||||||||||
• De facto transfer | 1 November 1954 | ||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||
| 1936 | 510 km2 (200 sq mi) | ||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||
• 1936 | 298,861 | ||||||||||
| Currency | French Indian rupee | ||||||||||
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| Today part of | India | ||||||||||
| Colonial India | ||||||||||||||
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French India, formally the Établissements français dans l'Inde[a] (English: French Settlements in India), was a French colony comprising five geographically separated enclaves on the Indian subcontinent that had initially been factories of the French East India Company. They were de facto incorporated into the Republic of India in 1950 and 1954. The enclaves were Pondichéry, Karikal, Yanam on the Coromandel Coast, Mahé on the Malabar Coast and Chandernagor in Bengal. The French also possessed several loges ('lodges', tiny subsidiary trading stations) inside other towns, but after 1816, the British denied all French claims to these, which were not reoccupied.
By 1950, the total area measured 510 km2 (200 sq mi), of which 293 km2 (113 sq mi) belonged to the territory of Pondichéry. In 1936, the population of the colony totalled 298,851 inhabitants, of which 63% (187,870) lived in the territory of Pondichéry.[4]
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