Madikeri (Coorg)

Madikeri, the headquarters of Kodagu (Coorg) district in Karnataka, has a history shaped by hill clans, small kings and then colonial rule. The surrounding region was traditionally home to Kodava warriors and farming communities, who lived in scattered ainmane (ancestral houses), growing paddy, pepper and later coffee on the misty slopes. For centuries the area was ruled by local chiefs, and from the 17th century the Haleri dynasty emerged, making Madikeri (then called Mercara) their hill capital.

The Haleri rulers built Madikeri Fort, palace buildings and key temples like Omkareshwara, and laid out the early town. They often shifted alliances between the Mysore kingdom, local powers and, later, the British. In the early 19th century, after conflicts and internal troubles, the British deposed the last Coorg ruler, Chikka Veera Rajendra, and annexed Coorg as a separate province under direct British administration, with Mercara as its headquarters.

Under the British, Madikeri developed as a hill station and administrative town, with churches, bungalows and roads, while coffee plantations expanded across Coorg, making it a major coffee-growing region. After Independence, Coorg was briefly a separate state, then merged into Mysore (Karnataka) in 1956, with Madikeri continuing as the district HQ and main gateway to Coorg’s coffee estates, hills and waterfalls.