Kohima Tourism

Kohima is the hilly capital city of India's north eastern state of Nagaland. With a resident population of 99,039 it is the second largest city in the state. Originally known as Kewhira, it was founded in 1878 when the British Empire established its headquarters of the then Naga Hills. It officially became the capital after the state of Nagaland was inaugurated in 1963.

Kohima is the land of the Angami Naga tribe. The name, Kohima, was officially given by the British as they could not pronounce the Angami name Kewhima or Kewhira (Tenyidie for "the land where the flower Kewhi grows"). It is called after the wild flowering plant Kewhi, found in the mountains. Earlier, Kohima was also known as Thigoma. Kohima is located south of Kohima District (25.67°N 94.12°E) and has an average elevation of 1261 metres (4137 feet). The town of Kohima is located on the top of a high ridge and the town serpentines along the top of the mountain ranges as is typical of most Naga settlements.

The British incursions into the Naga territory, beginning in the 1840s, met with stiff resistance from the independence-loving Nagas, who had never been conquered by any empire before. The stiffness of the resistance can be gauged by the fact that it took nearly four decades for the British to conquer a territory that is less than 10,000 square kilometres (the eastern region was left free). Kohima was the first seat of modern administration as the Headquarters of Naga Hills District (then under Assam) with the appointment of G.H. Damant as Political Officer in 1879. When Nagaland became a full fledged state on 1 December 1963, Kohima was christened as the state capital.