Bardez

Bardez
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Settlement type	Taluka (sub-district)
Country	India
State
District
Subdivision

Bardez was a concelho (municipality) of Portuguese possessions of Goa, Damaon& Diu. Situated in the northern portion of the present-day Goa state, in western India, it is a co-terminus and is an eponymous tehsil (sub-district or taaluka) of the North Goa district.

Etymology

File:Slope to Bardez, Goa, India.jpg

View of a valley in Bardez

The name is credited to the Saraswat Brahmin immigrants who emigrated to the Konkan coast via Magadha plains in northern India. Bardez, or more properly Bara (twelve) desh (country), means 'twelve countries' (or territories). The form 'country' probably refers to clan territorial limits, or to the Brahmin comunidades, of which the twelve are:

Bardez is delimited on the north by the Chapora River, on the south by the Mandovi River, on the east by the Mapusa River, which originates in Bardez itself near the capital city of Mapusa, and on the west by the Arabian Sea.

A native of Bardez is called a Bardezcar (Template:IPA) in the local Konkani language.

Bardez is the site of the legislature of Goa, in the southern parish village of Penha de França (Britona), in Serula. Other famous sites are the Fort Aguada, the beaches of Candolim, Sinquerim, Calangute, Baga, Anjuna, and Vagator villages, the hilltop monastery and boarding school of Monte Guirim, which was restored by Padre Luna after Pombal's devastation, the village communities of Salvador do Mundo, Penha da França, Siolim, Moira, Porvorim, Colvale, Saligao, and Sangolda, to name but the most prominent.

Goa's Indian Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM) and Saint Xavier's College, Mapusa are located in Bardez.

The village and comunidade of Anjuna was famous as a hippie settlement. Among the Goan Catholics, it is famous as the birthplace of Venerable Father Agnelo, who is expected to attain sainthood. He is one of the two most prominent Catholic religious Goan, the other being St. Saint Joseph Vaz, the 'Apostle of Ceylon', who attained sainthood recently.