Canning (Bengali: [kæn̪iŋ]) is a town of the South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal.

Cotton writes, "The year 1864… It witnessed also the speculative mania over an unlucky scheme for the reclamation of the Sunderbans, of which nothing remains but the deserted wharves of Port Canning, but which resulted in ruin to many".

[4] The idea of developing a major port at the town faded with the choking of the Matla River as a result of inadequate headwater supply.

[5] Lord Canning had wanted to build a port that would be an alternative to Kolkata and a rival to Singapore.

What no one heeded were the warnings of a lowly shipping inspector Henry Piddington, who had lived in the Caribbean and knew all about hurricanes and storms.

He wanted the mangroves to be left alone, as they were Bengal’s defensive barrier against nature’s fury and absorbed the initial onslaught of cyclonic winds, waves and tidal surges.

The settlement was built with a strand, hotels and homes, but in 1867 the Matla River surged and reduced the town to a "bleached skeleton".

[9] In 1862, the Eastern Bengal Railway opened a southward line from what was then known as Beliaghata station to Port Canning.

The entire district is situated in the Ganges Delta with numerous islands in the southern part of the region.

The map of the CD block Canning I on the page number 333 in the District Census Handbook 2011 for the South 24 Parganas district shows Canning as being a part of the Matla and Dighirpar census towns.

[24] The District Human Development Report, South 24 Parganas, writes, "Canning has emerged as a major market for supply of fish to Kolkata.

However, as greater part of Kolkata’s fish now come from South India and Madhya Pradesh, local wholesale trade at Canning has lost out in the competition.

After the partition of India, refugees from East Pakistan/ Bangladesh had a strong impact on the development of urban areas in the periphery of Kolkata.