Kalyan, city in western India, in western Maharashtra state, located by the estuary of the Ulhas River with access to the Arabian Sea. Kalyan is 48 km (30 mi) northeast of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and is part of the Greater Mumbai area. Overcrowding in Mumbai and incentives from the government to develop areas outside of Mumbai have attracted industrial business as well as industrial employees to Kalyan. On the eastern side of the city is a large industrial complex where electrical equipment, rayon, and dyes and other chemicals are manufactured. There are also a large number of textile-based cottage industries. Kalyan is an ancient port, dating back to the Gupta dynasty (320-550?). It is linked by direct rail with Mumbai and serves as an important railway junction. The nearest airport is in Mumbai.
Extensive ruins in Kalyan indicate the city's former magnificence. It was occupied by the Bijapur sultanate (a Muslim state) in the 1500s and later by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who fortified the city in the mid-1600s. Later the Marathas occupied the area, making Kalyan one of their strategic centers because it guarded the entrance to Bombay and the western coast of India. After the British defeated the Marathas at the end of the 18th century, Kalyan became part of the Bombay Presidency, a British region that became Bombay state after India's independence in 1947. Population (1991) 1,014,557.
