This is one of Goa’s largest industrial and commercial cities located about 39kms southwest of Panaji. Vasco da Gama is a very neat & clean coastal town. Popularly known as Vasco, this town was originally called Sambhaji.

Imposing huge buildings and a church dominates the city centre here. Close to Marmagoa Harbour and 3 km from Dabolim airport, Vasco-Da-Gama is the junction of the railway lines into Goa. The town was named after the legendary Portuguese explorer and Goa’s former Viceroy, Dom Vasco da Gama. It lies on the western tip of the Mormugao peninsula overlooking the mouth of the Zuari River. This area came under Portuguese rule in 1543 and for a long time was a very busy port. The main town of Vasco is well laid out pretty much in a straight line along parallel roads interlinked by small bylanes.

There is hardly any landmark worth making a visit to Vasco, except for the 400-year old St. Andrews Church which lies at the entrance to the city. In recent times, the city has been attracting local visitors, to what is easily the best cinema theatre in the whole of Goa.

The port of Mormugao, around one of India’s few natural harbours, lies 4 kms from the city centre and the only airport in the state, the Goa Airport at Dabolim, is also about 4 kms from the city. Vasco also has a railway terminus for passenger trains to nearby areas outside Goa and more importantly a daily service which takes tourists to the magnificent Dudhsagar waterfalls near the state border.

There are two beaches near the city. The bigger and the more famous is the Bogmalo beach which is about 8 kms south-east of the town and the smaller one named Hollant lies just about halfway along the same road. Bogmalo beach has luxury and mid-range hotels in the neighborhood along with quite a few shacks where you can sample some tasty sea-food dishes.

Along this same road to the Bogmalo beach is located the Naval Air Museum, the only one of its kind in the whole of Asia. It has on display, some of the fighter aircraft which have done duty for India in its conflicts with the enemy.

Vasco-da-Gama is a key shipping centre, very important for the economy of Goa, which has a large number of mines in its interiors. The Mormugao port handles heavy traffic of container vessels and iron ore barges carrying ores and minerals to countries such as Japan and Korea.