Parangipettai

Parangipettai, known to Europeans as Porto Novo, stands on the Coromandel Coast near the mouth of the Vellar River. The port served merchants trading in textiles and other goods across the Bay of Bengal. Portuguese and later Dutch and English traders frequented the coast, where Indian merchants maintained their own extensive connections. In 1781, during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, British forces under Sir Eyre Coote defeated Haidar Ali’s army in the battle of Porto Novo, fought near the town.