Mumbai vs. Bombay Mumbai is one of the world's ten largest cities today and is located in the Indian state of Maharashtra. This world-class city wasn't always known by this name however. Mumbai was formerly known as Bombay, which has its origins in the 1600s with the Portuguese. During their colonization of the area, they began calling it Bombaim - Portuguese for "Good Bay." In 1661 though, this Portuguese colony was given to King Charles II of England after he married the Portuguese princess Catherine de Braganza. When the British then took control of the colony, its name became Bombay- an anglicized version of Bombaim. The name Bombay then stuck until 1996 when the Indian government changed it to Mumbai. It is believed that this was the name of a Kolis settlement in the same area because many Kolis communities were named after their Hindu deities. By the early 20th Century, one of these settlements was named Mumbadevi for a goddess of the same name. Therefore the ch