Qualla: Chilika Lake

Chilika Lake: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pmsarangi, CC BY-SA 4.0. The villagers around Chilika Lake still celebrate Bali Yatra -- the Journey to Bali. The festival commemorates an era when this 1,100-square-kilometer lagoon on Odisha's east coast was not a birdwatching destination but a maritime gateway. A tenth-century text, the Brahmanda Purana, describes Chilika as a shelter for ships sailing to Java, Malaya, Singhala, and China. The lake was deep enough to berth seagoing vessels and wide enough to launch trading fleets toward Southeast Asia. That world is gone now, silted over and transformed, but Chilika remains extraordinary -- Asia's largest brackish water lagoon, India's first Ramsar site, and a tentative UNESCO World Heritage nominee where salt water and fresh water merge in an ecosystem unlike any other on the subcontinent.

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Image: Pmsarangi | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chilika Lake: Port of Kings and Pilgrims

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pmsarangi, CC BY-SA 4.0. Chilika's maritime history reaches back millennia. Geological evidence places the lake as part of the Bay of Bengal during the late Pleistocene period. Excavations at Golabai Sasan, north of the lake, revealed a boat-building center dating to 2300 BCE -- the only excavated site i...

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Image: Pmsarangi | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chilika Lake: Where Salt Meets Sweet

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ayush purwar, CC BY-SA 3.0. Chilika is a shape-shifter. Its water surface area swells from 906 square kilometers in the dry winter to 1,165 square kilometers during the monsoon. Salinity varies by region, from freshwater where rivers flow in to full oceanic levels near the tidal inlet. A 32-kilometer outer ...

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Image: Ayush purwar | CC BY-SA 3.0

Chilika Lake: A Million Wings in Winter

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Government of Odisha, CC BY 4.0. When winter arrives, Chilika transforms into one of the largest congregations of migratory birds in Asia. Over 160 species arrive from the Caspian Sea, Lake Baikal, the Kirghiz steppes of Kazakhstan, Siberia, Mongolia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Himalayas -- some traveling ...

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Image: Government of Odisha | CC BY 4.0

Chilika Lake: Dolphins, Threats, and a Fragile Recovery

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rangan Datta Wiki, CC BY-SA 4.0. Around 159 Irrawaddy dolphins inhabit the lagoon, a population once confined to the inlet channel and a sliver of the central sector. After the Chilika Development Authority opened a new mouth at Satapada in 2000, the dolphins spread into the central and southern sectors. That in...

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Image: Rangan Datta Wiki | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chilika Lake: The Goddess and the Gemstone Sellers

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sharmasarthak20, CC BY-SA 4.0. Kalijai Temple sits on an island in the lagoon, considered the abode of the goddess for whom it is named. Local fishermen regard her as the reigning deity of Chilika. Nearby, the island of Barunkuda holds a temple to Lord Varuna, god of the sea -- fitting for a lake that was once...

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Image: Sharmasarthak20 | CC BY-SA 4.0