French India

French India is a general name for the French establishments set up by the French East India Company in India from the second half of the 17th century onward, and officially known as the Établissements français dans l'Inde from the resumption of French rule in 1816 to their de facto incorporation into the Union of India in 1949 and 1954. They included Pondichéry, Karikal and Yanaon on the Coromandel Coast, Mahé on the Malabar Coast, and Chandernagor in Bengal. French India also included several loges (subsidiary trading stations that all European East India companies maintained in a number of Indian towns), but after 1816 these were to be nominally French only.

The total area amounted to 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 totaled 298,851 inhabitants, of which 63% (187,870) lived in the territory of Pondichéry.