A small hamlet on the Coromandel Coast of India. In 1620, Tranquebar was acquired as a colony by the Danish East India Company. Tranquebar remained a Danish colony until the middle of the 19th century, and was one of the last non-British colonies in India.
Although, technically speaking, Tranquebar continued to be the legal possession of the naik of Tanjore, who had granted the Danes the right to establish their colony, the fortress Dansborg which dominated Tranquebar was so strong by Indian standards that the settlement was effectively independent of the naik's authority.
Today, the once-mighty fortress is partly ruined, and is only used as housing for travellers. Tranquebar itself has declined almost into obscurity.