Thana

Thana lies at the head of the creek behind Salsette Island on the northern Konkan coast, facing the deep harbour of the Bombay islands to the south. Koli fishermen lived along these shores, worshipping their goddess Mumba Devi, whose name is the root of the island city's name. The creek brought boats inland to Thana, while the harbour to the south sheltered ships of any size.

The Gujarat sultans held the coast until 1534, when Bahadur Shah ceded Bassein, Thana and the Bombay islands to Portugal. In 1737 the Marathas took Thana from the Portuguese. During the First Anglo-Maratha War the British took Salsette and the fort of Thana, and the Treaty of Salbai of 1782 left both under British control. Bombay's own turn came in 1661, when the marriage treaty of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza gave the islands to England. In 1668 the Crown handed them to the East India Company for an annual rent of ten pounds, and in 1687 the Company moved its western headquarters there from Surat. Parsi shipbuilders of the Wadia family built a dockyard in 1736, and the Hornby Vellard, finished in 1784, closed the sea gap and joined the separate islands into one.