Lanja

Lanja is located at 16.85°N 73.55°E / 16.85; 73.55.[1] It has an average elevation of 166 metres (544 feet). It's a Taluka head in Ratnagiri district. National highway popularly known as Mumbai-Goa Highway passes through it. Nearest rail head is Adavali on konkan railway which is around 15 km away.

From the time of the Peshva up to 1 August 1879, when Vengurle was made a sub-division, Lanja was the headquarters of a petty division of Rajapur.

In the village is the grave of a Muhammedan saint named Syed Chand Bukhari Ali Faqir, said to have lived about five hundred years ago. Yearly at the Magh (January–February) full moon an Urus is held, when the tomb is, with ceremonies and prayers, covered with a cloth and sprinkled with powdered sandalwood. The fair is still largely attended (1960), by people of different communities from Lanja and the neighbouring villages. Shopkeepers come from Rajapur and open temporary booths at which for about a month coarse country and imported cloth and miscellaneous articles are sold. There is also a domed tomb near the village with no more definite history than that it marks the grave of a princess who died on a journey. [Nairne in Ind. Ant. II. 317.]

As of 2001 India census,[2] Lanja had a population of 237000. Males constitute 51% of the population and females 49%. Lanja has an average literacy rate of 73%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 78%, and female literacy is 69%. In Lanja, 14% of the population is under 6 years of age.

Lanja city has branches of Bank of India, (est.1969), State Bank of India,Janata bank, State bank of Hyderabad,Lokmanya Tilak co operative bank, RDC bank, Chiplun urban bank, Rajapur urban bank,IDBI bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Saraswat co-op. Bank. There is a Z.P Hospital and a S.T Bus depot. Also there are number of Z.P schools as well as a Secondary Education school popularly known as New English School. Nursing college, Late Eknath Rane English Medium high-school and Dnyaneshwar Vidya Mandir offer Secondary and primary education respectively in English. Senior college for Arts, Commerce and Science is also located in the town.

The temperatures sometimes come below the 10 degrees Celsius in winters. In summer they occasionally jump up to 40 degrees Celsius.