The harbour spread over 400 square kilometres (150 sq mi) is protected by the mainland of Konkan to its east and north and by the island city of Mumbai to its west.

In 1652, the Surat Council of the East India Company, realising the geographical advantage of the Port, urged its purchase from the Portuguese.

Their wish was gratified nine years later when, under the Marriage Treaty between Charles II of Great Britain and the Infant Catherine of Portugal, the ‘Port and Island of Bombay’ were transferred to the king of Great Britain The first of the present-day docks of the Port were built in the 1870s.

Port development was undertaken by the civil engineering partnership Sir John Wolfe-Barry and Lt Col Arthur John Barry as Joint Consulting Engineers to the Bombay Port Trust at the end of the nineteenth century.

Over the decades, the port underwent tremendous expansion, with the addition of berths and cargo handling capacities.

[2] The port has four jetties on Jawahar Dweep, an island in the harbour, for handling crude and petroleum products.