Armagaon (also Armagon or Armeghon) was a fortified English East India Company post on the Coromandel Coast at present-day Dugarajapatnam, Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. Recorded variants include Durgarayapatnam, Durgarazpatam and Duraspatam.
History The Company decided in January 1626 to establish a factory; Thomas Mills and his party arrived the following month. By 1628–29 it had 12 guns and about 23 factors and soldiers; Hunter described it as the Company's first fortified garrison in India.
Armagaon gained importance when the Company's Machilipatnam factory was temporarily abandoned in 1628, but trade remained limited. In 1639–40 Francis Day and Andrew Cogan shifted operations to Madraspatnam, where Fort St. George was founded; Armagaon was abandoned by 1641.
The name Armagaon has traditionally been linked to Armuga Mudaliar, a local official who assisted the English, although the derivation is uncertain. Writing in the 17th century, Thomas Bowrey described the locality as chiefly inhabited by salt-makers.
Historical depictions Armagaon appears in several eighteenth-century European hydrographic works, reflecting its continuing importance as a coastal reference point after the English factory had been abandoned. A coastal profile published by Alexander Dalrymple in 1781 includes a view of Armagon together with other settlements on the Coromandel Coast, while an anonymous eighteenth-century nautical chart depicts the coast extending from Armegon to Bimlepatam.
Present day The site of Armagaon forms part of present-day Dugarajapatnam, a coastal gram panchayat in Vakadu mandal, Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. The historic name survives in Armagon Lighthouse, an operational lighthouse maintained by the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships.
In 2026 the area was also being developed as the proposed Dugarajapatnam Greenfield Shipbuilding Cluster, with about of planned land and of waterfront. Land acquisition and technical studies for the port, shipbuilding and ship-repair facilities were under way.
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