Fort Dansborg

Fort Dansborg, known locally as the Danish Fort, stands on the Bay of Bengal shore at Tharangambadi (Tranquebar) in Mayiladuthurai district. In 1620 Admiral Ove Gjedde of the new Danish East India Company signed a treaty with the Thanjavur king Raghunatha Nayak, despite Portuguese opposition, leasing an area about 8 by 4 kilometres for a yearly rent and the right to tax nearby villages. The fort became the base of the Danish settlement and of all Danish forts only Kronborg is larger.

Denmark sold it to the British in 1845, after which the town lost its trading importance. After independence it served as a government inspection bungalow until the state archaeology department took it over in 1978. It now houses a museum of objects from the fort and Denmark's Indian colony, and was restored in 2001 with help from the Danish royal family, and again in 2011.