ViewpointKottakkunnu (hill park)
A hilltop garden laid over the remains of a Zamorin-era fort above Malappuram town, with lawns, an open-air theatre and long dusk views. It serves as the town's evening balcony.
District 10 · Kerala
Malappuram
Rivers, hills and heritage
The lie of the land
Kerala's most populous district folds green hills between two rivers — the storied Nila flowing to the sea at Ponnani and the Chaliyar curling past teak country at Nilambur. It is a land of scholarship, Mappila song and an outsized passion for football, where history runs from medieval Mamankam fairs to colonial teak plantations.
- Best season
- October – March
- Getting there
- Calicut Intl (CCJ) · Tirur rail
- Known for
- Nila river, teak, football culture
Two rivers, a thousand Mappila songs, and a football match in every clearing.
The essentials
Three reasons to come
Featured attractions
01River
Bharathapuzha (Nila) River
Kerala's river of poets and classical arts flows wide and sandy along the district's southern edge to the sea at Ponnani. Its banks raised Kathakali, Ayurveda lineages and centuries of literature.
02Wildlife
Kadalundi Bird Sanctuary
Where the Kadalundi river braids into the sea through mangrove islets, gulls, terns, sandpipers and whimbrels gather in strength from November to April. It is Kerala's first community-managed bird reserve.
03Nature
Nilambur teak forests & Teak Museum
The world's oldest planted teak stands rise at Conolly's Plot, set out in the 1840s, and the world's only Teak Museum tells the timber's story nearby. The Chaliyar river threads it all through deep green.
Go deeper
5 more places that define Malappuram
More attractions
Viewpoint
HeritageThirunavaya (Mamankam heritage)
A temple riverside on the Nila that hosted the Mamankam, the great twelve-yearly assembly over which kingdoms fought for centuries. The Navamukunda temple still anchors bathing ghats where ancestral rites are performed.
ViewpointKodikuthimala viewpoint
Called the Ooty of Malappuram, this grassy summit near Perinthalmanna gathers mist most mornings of the year. A paved path spirals to the top for sunrise over folded green country.
BeachPadinharekara Beach
At the tip of Tirur's sand spit, the Bharathapuzha and Tirur rivers meet the Arabian Sea in one broad confluence. The sunset over three waters is the district's finest coastal moment.
TempleAngadippuram
The Thirumandhamkunnu Bhagavathy temple here was the tutelary shrine of the Valluvanad rajas, its Pooram drawing processions each spring. The site also holds a national geological monument of naturally formed laterite.
Continue the journey
Kozhikode
The historic Malabar port