The village of Kurla came under Portuguese rule when the Treaty of Bassein (1534) was signed by Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat and the Kingdom of Portugal on 23 December 1534.

In 1808, Kurla, along with the villages of Mohili, Kolekalyan, Marol, Sahar, Asalphe, and Parjapur, were given by the British to a Parsi merchant of Bombay, Mr. Hormasji Bamanji Wadia in exchange for a piece of land near the Apollo pier gate in Bombay.

The Stone quarries of Kurla were well known[5] and supplied material for the construction of most of the city's famous heritage buildings[6] like the Prince of Wales Museum,[7] and the General Post Office[8] among others.

The beginning of the twentieth century saw Kurla develop as an important centre of the mill industry.

Kurla, however, was an old textile industrial core, an outlier to the main cotton mill zone.

[9] The Central Railway began its Harbour Line services from Kurla to Reay Road station on 12 December 1910.

The first electric train in Asia that ran between CST and Coorla on 3 February 1925 was maintained at this car shed.

The 13-kilometre line, a project of the Bombay Improvement Trust run by the GIPR, ran from Trombay to Andheri via Kurla and lasted only a few years.

[16] This resulted in the development of the old Kurla neighbourhood into an automobile industrial zone during the late fifties and sixties.

[19] Kurla lies on the southern end of Salsette Island along the east bank of the Mithi River.

The Mithi River enters into Kurla's north-west corner near Sakinaka, running south along the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport boundary wall and the Bail Bazar locality, past the CST road and Taximens colony areas and empties into the Mahim Creek at the southern end of Kurla.

[22] Kurla displays an urban blend of residential colonies, big and small, industrial estates commercial enclaves and slums.

[34] Kurla is accessible from all parts of Mumbai by road and rail due to its central location.

The road begins at the southern end of Salsette Island, passing through Kurla and continuing up north into Ghatkopar towards Thane.

[35] The 6.45 kilometre long Santa Cruz – Chembur link road was opened in April 2014.

It connects the east and west sides of Kurla via a Road over bridge (ROB) over the Central railway line, which is also the city's first double-decker flyover[36] The road finally connects to the Eastern Express Highway at the Amar mahal junction.

The Kurla BEST Depot on the west suffered serious damage during the Mumbai floods of 2005 and has since been shut for redevelopment.

Buses from this depot used to cater to Mumbai University (Kalina Campus), Bandra Kurla Complex and Chembur.

It will have stations at SG Barve Marg, Kurla (East) and Eastern Express Highway.

Another issue was that the Kurla Terminus station would have been located in between the Santa Cruz–Chembur Link Road (SCLR) rail overbridge and another permanent structure.

[40][41] The 32-km long Wadala to Kasarvadavali Mumbai Metro Line 4 corridor will pass through Kurla East.

The hospital is equipped with 24X7 Trauma care, ICU, ICCU, NICU, MICU, state of the art Operation Theatre for minor, major, and supra major surgeries, pathology & diagnostic centre and stroke unit, nephrology and oncology center among others catering to all medical emergencies.