Bharuch (Gujarati: ભરૂચ) is today is a large seaport city of more than a million inhabitants and a municipality in the Bharuch district, in the state of Gujarat, India. As a trading depot, the limitations of coastal shipping made it a regular terminus via several mixed trade routes of the fabled spice and silk trading between East and West, so that it became known to history by various names such as Bharakuccha, Bhrigu Kaksha (the domain of Bhrigu, an ancient Indian sage), Bhroach, as well as Bhrauch. During the British Raj it was officially known as Broach.Bharuch was once just a small village on the banks of the Narmada River but that river's inland access to central and northern India and with a location in the sheltered Gulf of Khambat in the era of coastal sea travel grew and prospered as a trading transshipment center and ship building port. Until very modern times the only effective way to move goods was by water transport, and Bharuch had sheltered waters in a era without weather forecasting, compasses, and when shipping was necessarily limited to coastal navigation, and the general East-West course of the Narmada gave access to the rich inland empires at the upper reaches of the Narmada, including easy caravan access to the Ganges valley and the plains of Delhi.

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