Goa

Goa has a unicameral legislative assembly of 40 members. The state sends three members to the Indian national parliament: one to the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and two to the Lok Sabha (lower house). At the 2004 general election to the Lok Sabha the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress won one seat each. There are two local government administrative districts—North Goa and South Goa.

The ancient Hindu city of Goa (in Sanskrit Gove, Govapuri, or Gomant) lies in ruins. Nearby, the city of Old Goa (in Portuguese, Velha Goa), founded about 1440 and conquered by the Portuguese in 1510, is also nearly abandoned, although it contains several very old buildings, including the cathedral founded by the Portuguese conqueror Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511 and the convent of St Francis of Assisi (1517). Bom Jesus, a converted mosque dating from the same period, contains the tomb of the Spanish Jesuit missionary St Francis Xavier, who began his missionary work in Goa in 1542. At the height of its prosperity (c. 1575-1675), Old Goa had a population of 20,000. By the early 18th century, attacks by the natives and by rival Dutch traders had almost destroyed the city, and in 1759 the state capital was transferred to Nova Goa (later called Panjim, and now Panaji). The churches and convents of Old Goa, including Bom Jesus, were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.