PONANY, a seaport town of British India, in the district of Malabar, presidency of Madras, on the south side of a river of the same name, at its mouth in the Arabian Sea, 34 miles S. by E. of Calicut. It is a straggling place, built on level sandy ground; and it contains no fewer than 40 mosques, being inhabited chiefly by Mohammedans. Some of the houses are well built of stone, two storeys high, but the most of them are mere huts. The inhabitants live by fishing and trade. The latter is chiefly carried on by the patemars or sea-going boats of the natives, in which they sail to Madras, Bombay, and even as far as Arabia or Bengal. The chief exports are pepper, rice, cocoa-nuts, iron, and timber; the imports, wheat, sugar-canes, molasses, spices, salt, &c. Pop. about 10,000.