Malabar, New South Wales Headland which features the Malabar Battery, a World War II fortification complex. Malabar was named after a ship called the "MV Malabar", a Burns Philp Company passenger and cargo steamer that was shipwrecked in thick fog on rocks at Miranda Point on the northern headland of Long Bay 2 April 1931. The ship itself was named after Malabar, a region in the Indian state of Kerala famous for its history as a major spice trade centre. Prior to the wreck, the suburb was known as either Brand or Long Bay. Long Bay is reputed to have been the local Indigenous
Malabar region moisture-laden Southwest monsoon rains. The Malabar Coast featured (and in some instances still does) a number of historic port cities. Notable among these were/are Naura, Vizhinjam, Muziris, Nelcynda, Beypore and Thundi (near Kadalundi) during ancient times, and Kozhikode (Calicut), Cochin in the medieval period, and have served as centers of the Indian Ocean trade for millennia. Because of their orientation to the sea and to maritime commerce, the coastal cities of Malabar are very cosmopolitan and have hosted some of the first groups of Christians (now known as Saint Thomas Christians), Jews (today called as Cochin Jews), and Muslims (at