Chennai
Country: India · 6,599,000 inhabitants · Founded: 1639
Attractions
Wikivoyage
Chennai (Tamil: சென்னை Ceṉṉai), formerly Madras, is the capital of the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. With a population of 8.6 million (2011 census), Chennai's urbanised area is the most populous in Southern India and the fourth most populous in India. It is on the east coast of peninsular India.
Though Chennai traces its history to Fort St George and the adjoining village of Madrasapattinam founded by the British East India Company in 1640, some residential districts of the city are older. The name Madras was changed to Chennai in 1997 by a special act of the Tamil Nadu legislature.
Chennai is well-connected by road, rail and air and is a staging point for tours to the 7th century Pallava temple of Mamallapuram, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Hindu temples of Kanchipuram, Sriperumbudur and Tirupati, the bird sanctuary of Vedanthangal and the Pondicherry ashram.
Chennai has an extremely hot and humid climate, especially in the month of May, and has heavy rains during monsoons (July to November). The worst of the heat can be avoided by visiting from November to February.
Wikipedia
Chennai, also known as Madras (its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian census, Chennai is the sixth-most-populous city in India and forms the fourth-most-populous urban agglomeration. Incorporated in 1688, the Greater Chennai Corporation is the oldest municipal corporation in India and the second oldest in the world after London.
Historically, the region was part of the Chola, Pandya, Pallava and Vijayanagara kingdoms during various eras. The coastal land which then contained the fishing village Madrasapattinam, was purchased by the British East India Company from the Nayak ruler Chennapa Nayaka in the 17th century. The British garrison established the Madras city and port and built Fort St. George, the first British fortress in India. The city was made the winter capital of the Madras Presidency, a colonial province of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent. After India gained independence in 1947, Madras continued as the capital city of the Madras State and present-day Tamil Nadu. The city was officially renamed as Chennai in 1996.
The city is coterminous with Chennai district, which together with the adjoining suburbs constitutes the Chennai Metropolitan Area, the 35th-largest urban area in the world by population and one of the largest metropolitan economies of India. Chennai has the fifth-largest urban economy and the third-largest expatriate population in India. Known as the gateway to South India, Chennai is amongst the most-visited Indian cities by international tourists and was ranked 36th among the most-visited cities in the world in 2019 by Euromonitor. Ranked as a beta-level city in the Global Cities Index, it was ranked as the second-safest city in India by National Crime Records Bureau in 2023.
Chennai is a major centre for medical tourism and is termed "India's health capital". Chennai houses a major portion of India's automobile industry, hence the name "Detroit of India". It was the only South Asian city to be ranked among National Geographic's "Top 10 food cities" in 2015 and ranked ninth on Lonely Planet's best cosmopolitan cities in the world. In October 2017, Chennai was added to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) list. It is a major film production centre and home to the Tamil-language film industry.
