The name Mahe derives from Mayyazhi, the name given to the local river and region in the Malayalam language.

Therefore, the belief that the name of the town was given in honour of Bertrand Francois Mahe de La Bourdonnais (1699–1753), whose later fame derived in good part from his association with India, including his capture of Maye in 1741, is incorrect.

[2] Another claim that the spelling Mahe was officially adopted by the leader of the expedition that retook the city in 1726 in recognition of La Bourdonnais' role at the time is also unlikely.

[3] It is probable that the resemblance of Maye not to mention Mahe, with La Bourdonnais' family name prompted later generations to assume that the famous Frenchman was somehow directly or indirectly associated with the name to the town or the spelling of the name.

In 1741, Mahe de La Bourdonnais retook the town after a short period of occupation by the Marathas.

[citation needed] In 1761, the British captured Mahe and the settlement was handed over to the Rajah of Kadathanadu.

[4] On the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, a British force under James Hartley captured Mahe.

In 1816, the British restored Mahe to the French as a part of the 1814 Treaty of Paris, after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars.

After the independence of India the area continued to be French-ruled until 13 June 1954, when a long anti-colonial struggle culminated in its joining the Indian Union.

The ruler of Kingdom of Mysore from the 1760s, Hyder Ali (ca 1722–1782), gifted Naluthara to the French as a token of appreciation for the assistance they provided in the war.

Gandhians like I. K. Kumaran led the struggle for union with India in Mahe after Indian independence in 1947.

Both the Sex ratio (1184 females per 1000 male) and the literacy rates in Mahe are relatively higher compared to the rest of the nation.

The national Sex ratio is 940 females per male and the literacy rate is at 74.04 per cent.

The few places that upheld the rich French culture once prevalent in the area are:[9] Mahe has a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am), typical for the Kerala and Karnataka coast.

There is a dry season from December to March, but the location on the windward side of the Western Ghats means that during the westerly monsoon season the region receives exceedingly heavy rainfall, reaching up to 1,080 millimetres or 43 inches in July.

The nearest major railway stations, where several long-distance trains stop, are Thalassery, Kannur, Mangalore and Vatakara.