Map - Ullal

Ullal or Uḷḷāla is a City Municipality at Mangalore, educational, commercial & industrial hub in Dakshina Kannada district. It is located 10 km from the Mangalore City centre. Ullal City Municipality along with the Mangalore City Corporation forms the continuous Mangalore urban agglomeration area which is currently the fourth biggest in Karnataka after Bangalore, Mysore and Hubli-Dharwad. There is also a planning to merge Ullal City Municipality & some gram panchayats along with Mangalore City Corporation to form the Greater Mangalore region. Ullal is one of the oldest towns in India. In the 15th century it came under the rule of the Portuguese. Still the remains of its glorious history can be seen in the beaches and other parts of Ullal.

It is a town about 8–10 km south of Pumpwell, a major junction in Mangalore & close to the border between the two southern states of Karnataka and Kerala. The Mangalore International Airport is 24 km away from Ullal. It comprises two revenue divisions, Ullal and Permannur, in Mangalore taluk. Ullal is adjacent to City Corporation of Mangalore, 10 km from District headquarters – Mangalore. It is the part of the Mangalore urban agglomeration area. It is developing rapidly with many premium educational institutes and commercial centres. Most of the people in Ullal belong to either Beary or Mogaveera ethnic group.

It is very famous for historic locations like Sayyid Muhammad Shareeful Madani Darga, Sri Cheerumba Bagavathi Temple , Someshwara Temple, Someshwar Beach, Kadapara jara Darga, Summer Sands Beach Resort, Queen Abbakka Chowta's Fort at Ranipura, K Pandyarajah Ballal Institutes and college of nursing, St. Sebastian Church Permannur, Sayyid Madani Institutions, Fish Meal & Oil Plant, and Queen Abbakka's Jain temple at Melangadi.

This quaint little sea town on the shore of Arabian Sea was the setting for wide-scale sea-erosion that occurred in the late 1990s and early this millennium. The local authorities, however, have tried to reduce the damage by placing sand bags near the advancing coastline, the benefits of this step are yet to be noted. Adjacent to summer sands beach resort is subhash nagar. The remains of Rani Abbakka's fort can be seen in the vicinity of Someshwara Temple.

Ullal is the first "Kerosene Free" city in the state of Karnataka.

This town is an important trading centre for fish and fish manure. Fishing and Beedi rolling are main occupations of the residents of this town.

This town was the subsidiary capital of the Chowta rulers and was ruled by Jain Queen, Abbakka Chowta in the middle of the 16th century.

Abbakka Chowta of Ullal can perhaps be proclaimed the first promoter of women's liberation. A regular firebrand, the people of Ullal look upon her with much pride. A Jain princess of 16th century, she came to the throne on the death of her sister. She was married to the King of Mangalore, but the marriage was not a success. In a few years the couple was estranged with the queen returning to her beloved Ullal. The reason for the grouse was, the queen was averse to the payment of subsidy demanded by the Portuguese. While her husband continued to be subservient to them, the queen was openly rebellious. Relations between the royal couple steadily worsened and finally ended with divorce, with the queen returning all the jewels to her ex-husband. War was declared and the queen was captured while on a sailing expedition on the Nethravathi. Taken prisoner she was presented before her husband. However, on this one occasion the queen thought discretion the better part of valour and with all her womanly charms got the Banga Arasa (King) to set her free and return all her lands to her. The Raja went so far as to avow his eternal friendship to her. But hardly had she reached the precincts of her own kingdom then she vowed to wage war on her husband once more.

For this she sought the help of the powerful Raja of Bednore. The Banga Raja had meanwhile enlisted the help of the Portuguese to subjugate his wife. The Raja of Bednore being an opportunist was only too ready to enter the fray. The Banga-Portuguese alliance was defeated with the Banga Fort razed to the ground. The queen had to part with the fertile tract of land at Berdatte to the Bednore King for his support.

Having successfully defeated her husband, the queen now turned her attention to the Portuguese with whom she maintained her unconciliatory attitude. Several punitive expeditions were sent against her, which she repulsed successfully with the help of the Zamorin of Calicut. Another expedition sent under João Peixoto in 1566 ended in disaster for the Portuguese. The queen along with Chennappa Mogaveera (Gurikara) as commander-in-chief and Mogaveera warriors she surrounded the Portuguese frigate at night. She took them by surprise and inflicted a crushing defeat on them. Incensed by the defeat made all the more insulting at the hands of a woman, the Portuguese sent a veritable armada under the leadership of the Portuguese Governor himself. While the queen met with initial success, she was betrayed, so some say, by her own people for a casket of silver. However, the army of the queen was thoroughly outnumbered. What ensured was a bloody massacre with the queen escaping to the hills, a fugitive. Another version has it that the queen had killed herself rather than give herself up to the enemy which really seems more in keeping with her character.