Yanaon was one of the five principal settlements of French India between 1731 and 1954. It was referred to in British records as Yanam.
Colonial Yanaon
A French East India Company cannon ("Canon de 4"). Bronze, 1733, Douai. Caliber: 84mm, length: 237cm, weight: 545kg, ammunition: 2kg iron balls. The company's coat of arms can be seen on the Canon.
An old photo of 1954 that captured the flag hoisting ceremony aftermath the liberation of Yanaon.
French India, formally the Établissements français dans l'Inde, was a French colony comprising five geographically separated enclaves on the Indian subcontinent that had initially been factories of the French East India Company. They were de facto incorporated into the Republic of India in 1950 and 1954. The enclaves were Pondichéry, Karikal, Yanam on the Coromandel Coast, Mahé on the Malabar Coast and Chandernagor in Bengal. The French also possessed several loges inside other towns, but after 1816, the British denied all French claims to these, which were not reoccupied.
A portrait of Ananda Ranga Pillai
Colonial Yanaon
View of Pondicherry in the late 18th century
French factory (trading post) at Patna on the Ganges