It is a suburb of Mumbai.

Artefacts found near Kandivali indicate that the region around Kandivali was inhabited since the Stone Age. The township was a semi-rural area up to the 1980s, with agricultural land, hutments and villages. With the real estate boom in the 1980s and 1990s, many residential projects started to shift northward. This saw a frenzied construction activity leading to large scale development. The area has also witnessed the highest appreciation in land value in Bombay. The area currently has swank malls, wide roads, tony apartments, multiplexes and numerous flyovers. It is also popular as it is centrally located and well connected via train and bus. The northern hubbub of Borivali lies just a few kilometres away, and the Sahar international airport lies to the south.

Kandivali was long dominated by Gujarati and Marwari communities, but in recent times, due to the burgeoning of its population has turned more cosmopolitan. Numerous hospitals and polyclinics in the region have made the township the centre of medical healthcare in the region.

The original inhabitants are koli (Fishemen, who reside in the village of charkop. Now it is mostly populated by North Indians and gujaratis. It is one of the densely populated suburbs in Mumbai.