THE WORLD ATLAS

Realm · approximate borders · 1550–1728

Venad (early Travancore)

Venad, the kingdom from which Travancore grew, held the south-western tip of India: Thiruvananthapuram and Kanyakumari, with Attingal. Kollam (Desinganad), Kayamkulam and the lands further north were separate chiefdoms.

Its 16th–17th century rulers are poorly documented.

See Venad (early Travancore) on the map in 1550

On the map
1550–1728
Capital
Kalkulam (Padmanabhapuram); Thiruvananthapuram

Rulers named in the sources

South Asian kingdoms, 1550–1857

From the fall of Vijayanagara's capital to the Revolt of 1857, beside the Mughal, Maratha, Durrani and British realms and a few successor states, many kingdoms ruled themselves. In the south: Travancore, Cochin, the Zamorin's Calicut, the Keladi Nayakas, the last Aravidu kings of Vijayanagara, the Nayaks of Gingee, and Mysore through the Wodeyar, Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan periods. In the Deccan and centre: the Gond kingdoms of Garha-Mandla, Deogarh and Chanda, Bastar, Ratanpur, Hyderabad after 1799, Nagpur, Satara, and the Holkar, Scindia and Gaekwad states after 1818. In the north: the Rajput kingdoms and Jat Bharatpur after the Mughal collapse, Rohilkhand, the reduced Awadh of 1803–56, Kumaon, Garhwal, Ladakh and Sikkim. In the east: the Ahom, Koch, Kachari, Jaintia, Manipur and Tripura kingdoms. In the west: Kutch and the Khanate of Kalat.

Sources