The five-year-old Bangalore International Airport will be named Kempe Gowda International Airport, after the founder of the city, the union cabinet decided Wednesday, according to a state government release here.

Kempe Gowda is believed to have founded Bangalore about 500 years back. Folklore has it that it was known as 'Benda kaaluru' (baked bean town) and over the years it became 'Bengaluru' as it is even now called in Kannada, the language of the state.

Bangalore was served by an airport in city centre - the HAL (defence behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) airport till the new one came up at Devanahalli, about 35 km from city centre.

In December 2011, the two houses of Karnataka legislature had passed a resolution urging the central government to name the airport after Kempe Gowda.

The first flight from the new airport took off May 23, 2008.