Kozhikode District in the context of National Institute of Technology Calicut

Mahé district, (/ˈmɑːheɪ/) natively Mayyazhi (Malayalam: [mɐjːɐɻi]), is one of the four census districts of the union territory of Puducherry, India. Administratively it falls under the Puducherry district. It consists of the whole of the Mahé region. Mahé is the smallest district of India in terms of land area. The total area of Mahé district is surrounded on three sides by Kannur District and one side by Kozhikode District. Geographically Mahé district is part of North Malabar region.

It is the sixth least populous district in the country (out of 773).

North Malabar refers to the geographic area of southwest India covering the state of Kerala's present day Kasaragod and Kannur districts, Mananthavady taluk of the Wayanad district, the taluks of Vatakara and Koyilandy in the Kozhikode district, and the entire Mahe district of the Puducherry UT. The Korapuzha River or Elathur River in north Kozhikode serves as the border separating North and South Malabar. Manjeswaram marks the northern border between North Malabar and Dakshina Kannada.

The North Malabar region is bounded by Dakshina Kannada (Mangalore) to north, the hilly regions of Kodagu and Mysore Plateau to east, South Malabar (Korapuzha) to south, and Arabian Sea to west. The greater part of North Malabar (except Mahé) remained as one of the two administrative divisions of the Malabar District (an administrative district of British India under the Madras Presidency) until 1947 and later became part of India's Madras State until 1956. Mahé remained under French jurisdiction until 13 June 1954. On 1 November 1956, the state of Kerala was formed by the States Reorganisation Act, which merged the Malabar District with Travancore-Cochin apart from the four southern taluks, which were merged with Tamil Nadu, and the Kasaragod taluk of South Kanara District. During British rule, North Malabar's chief importance laid in producing Thalassery pepper and coconuts.

The Paniya, also known as Paniyar, Panyer, and Paniyan, are an ethnic group of India. They constitute the single largest Scheduled Tribe in Kerala and are mainly found in the Wayanad District and the neighbouring areas of Karnataka. They primarily inhabit villages around edge of forestland in Kerala's Wayanad, Kozhikode, Kannur and Malappuram districts. The Paniya speak the Paniya language, which belongs to the Dravidian family, closely related to Malayalam. The center of the bonding contracts was the famous temple of the regional mother goddess of the Valliyoorkkavu shrine near Mananthavady.