Coromandel Madras remade itself as Tamil Nadu's Chennai
Chennai, once Madras, is capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu on the Bay of Bengal's Coromandel Coast. The 2011 census ranked it India's sixth city and fourth urban agglomeration. A 2024 metro GDP near 196.5 billion dollars places it among the country's most productive regions, with tropical humidity, Northeast-monsoon rains, and a reputation as gateway to South India.
Stone Age tools at Pallavaram and megalithic traces mark deep settlement; first-century poet Thiruvalluvar is tied to Mylapore. Chola, Pallava, Pandya, and Vijayanagara powers ruled before Europeans arrived. Portuguese São Tomé rose in 1522 around traditions of St. Thomas; Dutch Pulicat sat northward. On 20 August 1639 Francis Day secured a coastal strip at Madrasapattinam from Nayak and Vijayanagara authority, building Fort St. George, Britain's first Indian fortress. The name Chennai recalls Chennappa Nayaka; Madras likely stems from older Madraspattinam, attested in a 1367 inscription as Mādarasanpattanam. Official renaming came 17 July 1996.
French forces under La Bourdonnais took Madras in 1746; Britain regained it in 1749 via Aix-la-Chapelle, then held against later French and Mysore threats. The city became South India's British naval and administrative hub and the 1802 baseline of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Railways tied it to Bombay and Calcutta. After 1947 it capitaled Madras State, later Tamil Nadu; Potti Sreeramulu's 1952–53 fast unto death here catalyzed Andhra State and linguistic reorganization. 1965 anti-Hindi agitations helped keep English as an official Indian language. The 26 December 2004 tsunami killed 206 along the shore.
Geography is flat Eastern Coastal Plains averaging 6.7 m elevation, clay soils, Cooum and Adyar rivers, Buckingham Canal, and Seismic Zone III rock. Climate is tropical savanna on the thermal equator with April–June peaks near 35–40 °C. Demography is about 80.7 percent Hindu, with nearly three million migrants and India's third-largest expatriate community; Tamil and Madras Bashai dominate speech. Euromonitor ranked it thirty-sixth among world tourist cities in 2019.
From fishing villages leased to the East India Company to a diversified industrial metro, Chennai keeps both names in living memory. Fort walls, monsoon floods, and Dravidian politics still shape a Coromandel capital that traded Madras for Chennai without abandoning either history.
Source: Chennai
