Across the blue waters of Port Blair’s harbor rises a forested ridge that has long watched over the Andaman Islands’ unfolding history. Today known to many as Mount Harriet National Park—and officially renamed Mount Manipur National Park in 2021—this protected landscape is both a conservation stronghold and a living archive of colonial legacies, freedom struggles, and India’s evolving tourism story in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Mount Harriet (about 383 m above sea level) is the highest hill on South Andaman Island. The national park that envelops it covers roughly 46.6 sq km of evergreen and semi-evergreen rainforest, trailing ridgelines, and coastal vistas looking toward North Bay and Ross Island (now Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Island). Its viewpoint famously appeared on older Indian ₹20 currency notes—a postcard scene that quietly seeded the park’s place in national imagination and, later, its tourism appeal.
The name “Mount Harriet” dates to the mid-19th century, when British administrator and naturalist Robert Christopher Tytler served in the Andamans. The hill was named after his wife, Harriet Christina Tytler, an accomplished artist and early photographer. As the penal settlement at Port Blair took shape after 1858, the ridge became a strategic and scenic backdrop to the British enterprise in the islands.
During the Raj, the Mount Harriet ridge functioned as a cooler retreat and a lookout over the harbor. A bungalow—later adapted as a forest rest house—served as a summer headquarters for administrators. From here, officials surveyed a seascape dotted with ships, signal stations, and lighthouses. The vantage made the hill integral to the story of Port Blair’s growth from a penal outpost to a colonial town with layered maritime infrastructure.
On the park’s eastern flank lies Madhuban, once known for forest operations. In the late colonial and early post-colonial periods, trained elephants helped haul timber through the rugged terrain—an activity that etched a labor history into today’s trekking paths. With the rise of conservation in the late 20th century and subsequent restrictions on logging, these operations ceased, and the trails transitioned into nature walks for visitors.
The Andamans’ reputation as a place of deportation and exile intertwines with the memory of freedom fighters from across the subcontinent. In the aftermath of the Anglo-Manipur War of 1891, members of the Manipuri royal family and associates were sent to the Andamans. In 2021, India formally honored that chapter by renaming Mount Harriet as Mount Manipur, a gesture that added new layers of remembrance to the landscape and reframed how its history is interpreted for visitors.
Conservation-era policy brought a new identity. The area was notified as Mount Harriet National Park in 1979, recognizing its ecological value—evergreen canopies, endemic birds and butterflies, and fragile island soils—and placing it within the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ growing network of protected areas alongside marine parks.
For decades after Independence, access to the islands remained tightly controlled due to strategic concerns and the imperative to protect indigenous communities and ecosystems. In the 1990s and 2000s, with improved connectivity and a national push for eco-tourism, Mount Harriet began receiving more visitors: day-trippers crossing the harbor from Port Blair to Bambooflat and onward by road to viewpoints, picnic spots, and trekking trails.
While the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami primarily devastated coastal settlements and jetties, the long-term rebuilding also catalyzed better signage and interpretation at heritage and natural sites. At Mount Harriet, the shift helped connect stories of place—colonial vantage points, freedom-fighter memory, and forest conservation—with the visitor experience.
For years, the reverse of the older ₹20 note depicted a sweeping scene from the Mount Harriet viewpoint toward North Bay and the lighthouse beyond. When travelers arrived in Port Blair holding that note, it acted like an invitation: climb to the ridge, stand where the image was captured, and see the currency view come alive. Even after newer notes adopted different motifs, the “₹20 viewpoint” remains a beloved stop on heritage-themed tours.
The trek from Mount Harriet down toward Madhuban traces erstwhile forest routes once used for elephant-assisted transport. Today’s walk is a nature-and-history trail: ferny gullies, canopy-filtered light, and the ghost-lines of a bygone working forest. Guides often point out both natural history and the park’s role in Port Blair’s resource economy before conservation took precedence.
Mount Harriet’s forests hold species found nowhere else. Endemic birds such as the Andaman wood pigeon (the Union Territory’s state bird), Andaman treepie, and Andaman drongo share space with a rich assembly of butterflies, including island forms that captivate lepidopterists. The appeal to nature lovers has helped diversify tourism beyond beaches—yet it also underscores the need for quiet trails, minimal litter, and respect for the park’s rules.
The park’s tourism appeal rests on a blend of perspective and proximity. It offers a literal viewpoint—geography that explains Port Blair’s siting, defenses, and growth—and it sits within an easy half-day of the capital, making it one of the most accessible ways to experience the islands’ forests. For travelers, the hill is a gateway: a place to understand why these islands mattered, how they were governed, who suffered and resisted here, and why their ecosystems are now fiercely protected.
Whether you call it Mount Harriet or Mount Manipur, the ridge above Port Blair is more than a scenic overlook. It is a palimpsest of the Andamans: colonial ambition, exile and resistance, working forests, conservation ideals, and a tourism model that is most meaningful when it is also careful. To stand at the viewpoint is to look not only across the harbor, but also back through the layers of history that make the Andaman Islands—and their travelers—what they are today.
What makes us different from other tour package companies
Our travel experts have core and intense knowledge about Andaman sector with over 10 years of experience that will help you choose the best possible itinerary as per your requirements.
Our travel experts are just one call away during your tour to help you with any kind of immediate assistance so that your tour is a more enjoyable and hassle-free tour.
eAndamanTourism ensures best rates to all our esteemed guests since we have our own hotels and fleet of vehicles and drivers and there is no third-party involvement. This ensures personalized service and best rates.
Kindly enter the details below for your Andaman Tour Package
