QUILON, a seaport town in Quilon district, Travancore state, Madras presidency, India, between the towns of Trevandrum and Aleppi, in 8° 54' N. lat, and 76° 37' E. long. It is a healthy town, and contained in 1881 a population of 13,588. It enjoys great facilities of water communication, and has an active export trade in timber, cocoa-nuts, ginger, pepper, &c. The outer point of the town (Tangacheri) is slightly elevated above the adjoining ground, and contains high cocoa-nut trees. Besides being a very projecting point, Quilon is rendered still more unsafe to approach by the bank of hard ground called the Tangacheri reef which extends some distance to the southwest and west of the point and along the coast to the northward. There is, however, good anchorage in a bight about 3 miles from the fort. Quilon is one of the oldest towns on the Malabar coast, and continued to be a place of considerable importance down to the beginning of the 1 Gth century. It was garrisoned by a strong British force from 1803 to 1830; but the subsidiary force has since been reduced to one native regiment, whose cantonments lie to the east of the town. The town is 385 miles south-west of Madras.