Korlai Fort

Korlai Fort in Raigad district is a work of Portuguese colonial architecture, built as a partner to the fort at Chaul to guard the mouth of the bay and a Portuguese province running from Korlai to Bassein. The Portuguese first fortified the site in 1521 with the Ahmednagar Sultanate's permission, then lost it; in 1594 Captain Abranches took it by force, despite defenders blocking the gates with a dead elephant and horse. An inscription records that the present castle was ordered by the Viceroy Dom Filipe Mascarenhas in 1646 and finished in 1680. The Marathas, after a failed attempt by Sambhaji in 1687, held it from 1739 to 1818.

The fort runs 2,828 feet with 305 gun embrasures and eleven gates. Lines of bastioned wall split the interior into three enclosures, and its bastions bear saints' names such as São Diego and São Francisco. On top are a three-mouthed rainwater cistern and the ruins of a magazine and of a church used from 1630 to 1728.