Mandvi was founded as a port town by the Khengarji, the king of Kutch, in 1574. The first temple to be built was the Sundarwar temple, followed by the Jama Masjid in 1603, the Lakshminarayan Temple in 1607, the Kajivali Mosque in 1608 and the Rameshwar Temple in 1627.
For all of this to have been built in the first 50 years of the towns existence is a clear indicator of its importance to the kingdom. Indeed, at its peak, Mandvi's wealth easily surpassed that of the capital at Bhuj, and it was only after ships grew too large for its harbor and began to prefer Mumbai that Mandvi started fading from the scene.
For 400 years, the shipbuilding industry has been the center of life in Mandvi. It was once the principal port of Kutch and of Gujarat.
At its peak, exports were said to outnumber imports fourfold, and their revenue reflected that. Ships came and went from East Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Malabar Coast (now called Kerala, in south India), and South-East Asia. During Rao Godiji's reign in the 1760's, he built and maintained a fleet of 400 ships, one that sailed as far as England and returned. The city used to have 8 m. fortified walls around it, but only small portions remain.
In 1929 the Vijay Vilas palace was built by Rao Vijayrajji, and is maintained in excellent condition today. The British Political Agent based in Bhuj had summer quarters at Mandvi, and the British cemetery attests to the extended presence of the British in the area.
As ships grew larger and Mumbai became an ever-more-powerful center of commerce, fewer and fewer vessels would moor at Mandvi, preferring Mumbai or Surat. Today, with a harbor far too small for modern supersized shipping operations, it is no longer a major shipping port, but shipbuilding is still done by hand on the banks of the Rukmavati River.
