Bombay
Bombay names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Bombay bom-ba, an important commercial city and seaport on Bombay Island
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
bom-ba, an important commercial city and seaport on Bombay Island, situated on the western coast of Hindustan. Latitude, 18 deg. 53 N., longitude, 72 deg. 52 E. Bombay is the second city of British India in point of size and importance, and lies nearest to the Suez Canal . The harbor is one of the largest and best in the world. The island has been connected with the mainland by a causeway. Docks, harbor facilities, public buildings, street railways, electric lights, enormous goods depots, and hotels give the city an imposing water front. It is the western terminus of the Indian railways. The Victorian station cost $15,000,000, and is one of the finest structures of the kind in the world. A university and numerous fine churches give travelers an impression that Bombay is a European city. The surrounding scenery is bold and striking. The leading article of export is cotton, though a hundred mills are now engaged in spinning. Bombay is to a large country, an empire in fact, what New York is to the United States . The British acquired the island of Bombay from the Portuguese in 1661. It was the second British possession in India, Madras being the first. The population in 1910 was about 900,000. Though under British control, the people are largely Hindus or Mohammedans, with about 60,000 Parsees. Their religious views are often responsible for occurrences which seem strange enough. For instance, a shipment of animal crackers was rejected on the score that the religion of Mohammed forbids images. Another peculiarity, indicating lack of haste in methods of doing business, is the newspaper service. The price of the leading morning newspaper in Bombay, delivered by mail, is sixty-six cents a month, but if a subscriber will take it from a carrier who delivers it at seven o'clock and will read and return it when he calls again at eleven o'clock, the price is only fifty cents a month. If the subscriber is willing to wait for his morning paper until four o'clock in the afternoon, he may have it at that hour and return it to the carrier the next morning for thirty-three cents a month. Or, if he likes to keep his old papers, he may wait until the next morning after publication, have his paper for thirty-three cents a month, and be under no obligation to return it at all. Thus the same paper may be circulated through three different households and the total revenue therefrom will amount to one dollar and five cents per month. See India ; Parsees
Bombay the chief seaport on the W
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the chief seaport on the W. coast of India, and capital of the presidency of the same name; at the southern extremity of the island of Bombay; is divided into two portions, one known as the Fort, and formerly surrounded with fortifications, on a narrow point of land with the harbor on the E. side and Back Bay on the W.; the other known as the City, a little to the N. W. In the Fort are Bombay Castle, the Government offices, and almost all the merchants' warehouses and offices. Bombay has many handsome buildings, both public and private, as the cathedral, the university, the secretariat, the high court. Various industries, such as dyeing, tanning, and metal working, are carried on, and there are large cotton factories. The commerce is very extensive, exports and imports of merchandise reaching a total value of over $300,- 000,000 annually. The harbor is one of the largest and safest in India. There is a large traffic with steam vessels between Bombay and Great Britain, and regular steam communication with China, Australia, Singapore, Mauritius, etc. The island of Bombay, which is about 11 miles long and 3 miles broad, formerly subject to inundations, is protected by embankments, to prevent which substantial walls have been constructed. After Madras, Bombay is the oldest of the British possessions in the East, having been ceded by the Portuguese in 1661. Pop. about 1,000,000.
Bombay a presidency and one of the eight great provinces of British India: between lat
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a presidency and one of the eight great provinces of British India: between lat. 14° and 29° N., and long. 66° and 77° E. It includes Bombay, Tind and Aden. Area, 123,059 square miles. Pop. about 19,672,642, and the native states, area, 63,864 square miles, pop. about 7,411,676. The city of Bombay has a population of about 1,000,000. The southern portions are well supplied with moisture, but a great part of Sind is the most arid portion of India. The climate varies, being unhealthful in the capital, Bombay, and its vicinity, but at other places, such as Poonah, very favorable to Europeans. The chief productions of the soil are cotton, rice, millet, wheat, barley, dates, and the cocoa palm. The manufactures are cotton, silk, leather, etc. The great export is cotton. The administration is in the hands of a governor and council. The chief source of revenue is the land, which is largely held on the ryotwar system. Like Bengal and Madras, the presidency has its own army.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's put Bombay's population at "about 1,000,000" in 1921, it was describing the capital of a British presidency that stretched from Sind to Aden. That presidency no longer exists: Aden was detached in 1937, Sind went to Pakistan at Partition in 1947, and in 1960 the remaining Bombay State was divided along linguistic lines into Gujarat and Maharashtra, leaving the city as Maharashtra's capital. The city itself was officially renamed Mumbai in 1995, and the Victoria Terminus that Aiton's called "one of the finest structures of the kind in the world" is now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its population has passed twelve million within the municipal limits — roughly twenty million in the wider metropolitan region — and the cotton mills that dominated the old accounts have almost all closed, their land redeveloped for the finance and film industries that now define the city.
Written for this edition, 2026.