Malabar Coast part of this narrow coast is referred to as the South Western Ghats moist deciduous forests. The Malabar Coast, throughout recorded history from about 3000BC, had been a major trading center in commerce with Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Jerusalem and the Arab world. Its most famous ports (both defunct and functional) were 'Naura (Kannur), Balita (Vizhinjam), Kochi (formerly Ernakulam), Calicut (formerly Kozhikode [see List of renamed Indian cities and states]), and Mangalore, the most famous of them being Muziris, and the Oddeway Torre settlement (part of Danish India) have served as centers of the Indian Ocean trade, for centuries. Because
Syro-Malabar Catholic Archeparchy of Kottayam Jewish populations of Judea were dead, enslaved or in flight. Many of the Persian and Arabian Jews fled abroad, Jewish colonies were founded on the Malabar Coast and at other well known trading posts. Twenty years or so after the First Council of Nicaea, wealthy merchant Thomas of Cana brought a colony of 400 Syrian Christians (from 72 families, belonging to seven clans: Bagi, Belkuth, Hadai, Kujalig, Koja, Mugmuth, and Thegmuth) from southern Mesopotamia to the Malabar Coast in 345 and strengthened the church founded by Thomas the Apostle. According to Syrian writings, the Knanaya migration was a mission from