Munnar

Munnar () is a town located in the Idukki district of the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. Munnar is situated at around above mean sea level, in the Western Ghats mountain range. This ancient plantation settlement, dominated by its tea industry, is also a growing modern hill station. ==Etymology== The name Munnar is a combination of the words "Munnu" and "Aaru" in the local languages of Malayalam/Tamil meaning "three rivers", referring to its location at the confluence of the Muthirapuzha, Nallathanni and Kundali River rivers. ==History== The region has been inhabited by hunter-gatherer tribals like the Malayarayan and Muthuvan for thousands of years. In the early days, only Tamils and few Malayalis lived there. They were brought as workers in the tea plantations. Tradition states that Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, was the first British person to pass through Munnar during Tipu Sultan's campaign in Travancore, but this is unsubstantiated. The first survey of the terrain was undertaken by Benjamin Swayne Ward in 1816–1817, who followed Periyar into the Western Ghats and established a camp at the confluence of three rivers, from which the name of Munnar is derived.

50 years later Sir Charles Trevelyan who was the Governor of Madras, instructed Col. Douglas Hamilton to explore the hill country in the western part of the Madras Presidency, requesting special advice on the feasibility of establishing sanatoria for the British in the South and of developing revenue- earning projects without endangering the environment, as had happened in Ceylon where coffee had destroyed not only the rain forest but also paddy cultivation in the north-central rice bowl of ancient Ceylon. Hamilton climbed throughout the Ghats in Munnar region. 15 years later, John Daniel Munro noted that much of Munnar's land was suitable for coffee plantations. Munro, Henry Turn, and his half-brother AW Turner obtained ownership of the Cardamom Hills from the Raja of Travancore and began clearing forest around Devikulam in 1879. Soon many other Europeans began establishing tea plantations in the area throughout the 1880s. Early plantations had few facilities and were mainly huts of straw.