Tiruchirapalli
Encyclopedia
Tiruchirappalli (spelt as Trichinopoly in the records of British India), also called Tiruchi or Trichy , is a city
in the India
n state
of Tamil Nadu
and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli District
. It is the fourth largest municipal corporation
in Tamil Nadu and also the fourth largest urban agglomeration in the state. Situated at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south of Chennai
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanyakumari
on the National Highway NH 45, it is located almost at the geographic centre of the state.
Tiruchirappalli is believed to have been named after the three-headed demon Trishira
of Hindu mythology who is believed to have indulged in penance and obtained favours at this place. The city is believed to be of significant antiquity and has been ruled by the Early Cholas
, Early Pandyas, Pallavas, Medieval Cholas
, Later Cholas, Later Pandyas, Delhi Sultanate
, Ma'bar Sultanate, Vijayanagar Empire, Nayak Dynasty
, the Carnatic state
and the British
at different times. The archaeologically important town of Uraiyur which served as the capital of the Early Cholas is a suburb of Tiruchirappalli. Tiruchirappalli has a number of historical monuments, the Rockfort, Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam and the Jambukeswarar temple at Thiruvanaikaval being the most prominent among them.
Tiruchirappalli is an important industrial and educational hub of central Tamil Nadu. The factories of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
and Golden Rock Railway Workshops
are located in Tiruchirappalli. The National Institutes of Technology
(NIT), Indian Institute of Management, Bharathidasan University
and Anna University of Technology have their campuses in the city.
, the town got its name from the three-headed demon
Trishira
who meditated on the Hindu god Shiva
near the present-day Tiruchirappalli and obtained favours at this place. However, this derivation is not universally accepted.
Other derivations of Tiruchirappalli have been provided by the Telugu
scholar C. P. Brown who suggested that Tiruchirappalli might be a derivative of the word 'Chiruta-palli' meaning "little town". In an inscription of the sixteenth century, Tiruchirappalli is mentioned as Tiru-ssila-palli meaning "holy-rock-town" in Tamil and Henry Yule
and Arthur Coke Burnell
believed that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from it. A few other scholars feel that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from Tiru-chinna-palli meaning "holy little town". The Madras Glossary gives the root as Tiruććināppalli or the "holy (tiru) village (palli) of the shina (Cissampelos pareira
) plant".
During British rule, Tiruchirappalli was commonly referred to using the erroneous spelling "Trichinopoly". The shortened forms "Trichy" or "Tiruchi" are more frequently used in common parlance.
, its earliest settlements dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. Sir William Larke, Director of the British Iron and Steel Federation, stated:
Uraiyur, which served as the capital of the Early Cholas from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD is identified by some with a suburb of present-day Tiruchirappalli. The city is mentioned as "Orthoura" by the historian, Ptolemy
. The world's oldest surviving dam, the Kallanai, was built by Karikala Chola
across the Kaveri River
, about 24 kilometres (14.9 mi) from Uraiyur.
The medieval history of Tiruchirappalli begins with the reign of the Pallava king Mahendravarman I
who ruled over South India in the 6th century AD. Mahendravarman constructed the cave-temples within the Rockfort. Following the demise of the Pallavas in the 8th century AD, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Medieval Cholas
who ruled till the 13th century AD.
When the Chola Empire began to decline, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Pandyas who ruled from 1216 to 1311 when they were defeated by Malik Kafur
. The victorious armies of the Delhi Sultanate
are believed to have plundered and ravaged the kingdom. According to a local legend, the idol of the Hindu god Ranganatha
in the temple of Srirangam
was saved from destruction by burying it under a bilva tree. Tiruchirappalli was ruled by the Delhi and Madurai
sultanates from 1311 to 1378 when it was annexed by the Vijayanagar Empire. Tiruchirappalli remained a part of the Vijayanagar Empire and its successor, the Madurai Nayak kingdom till 1736. It served as the capital of the Madurai Nayak kingdom from 1616 to 1634 and from 1665 to 1736. In 1736, the last Madurai Nayak ruler Meenakshi
committed suicide and Tiruchirappalli was conquered by Chanda Sahib
who ruled the kingdom from 1736 to 1741 when he was captured and imprisoned by the Marathas. Tiruchirappalli was administered by the Maratha general Murari Rao
from 1741 to 1743, when it was annexed to the Carnatic kingdom. When the Nawab of the Carnatic
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
was dethroned by Chanda Sahib in the year 1751, he fled to Tiruchirappalli and set up his base there. The subsequent siege of Tiruchirappalli by Chanda Sahib led to the Second Carnatic War.
At the end of the Second Carnatic War, the kingdom was eventually restored to Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah who was later forced to cede Tiruchirappalli to the British East India Company
for non-payment of dues. The district of Trichinopoly
was constituted in 1801 with the city of Trichinopoly or Tiruchirappalli as its capital and John Wallace as its first District Collector.
During the Company Raj and later, the British Raj
, Tiruchirappalli emerged as one of the most important cities in India. It was popular throughout the British Empire
for its unique variety of cheroot
known as the Trichinopoly cigar
. According to the 1871 Indian census, the first in British India, Tiruchirappalli had a population of 76,530 making it the second largest city in Madras Presidency
, next only to the capital city of Madras.
In the early 20th century, Tiruchirappalli grew further achieving a decadal population growth rate of 36.9 percent during the period 1941-51. However, following India's independence, Tiruchirappalli has fallen behind other cities as Salem and Coimbatore
in terms of growth. As of 2001, Tiruchirappalli was the fourth largest city in Tamil Nadu after Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai.
. The topology of Tiruchirappalli is almost flat with a few isolated hillocks rising above the surface, the highest of which is the Rockfort. The city spread over an area of 146.7 square kilometres (56.6 sq mi) is situated on the plains between the Shevaroy Hills
to the north and the Palni Hills
to the south and south-west. The city is situated at the head of the Cauvery Delta which commences 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of Tiruchirappalli where the Cauvery River branches into two streams forming the island of Srirangam
.
The land immediately surrounding the Kaveri is made up of fertile alluvial soil deposited by the Kaveri and its tributary, the Kollidam. Further south, the surface is covered by poor-quality black soil. The alluvial soil is conducible for agriculture and crops such as ragi (finger millet
) and cholam (maize
) are grown. North-east of Tiruchirappalli runs a belt of cretaceous
rock known as the "Trichinopoly Group
". Layers of archaean rocks, granite
and gneiss
covered by a thin bed of conglomeratic
laterite
are found to the south-east of the city. The flora of Tiruchirappalli city and its surrounding areas is similar to that of the Cauvery delta. Cattle
are found in large numbers in the region.
The city is divided into three parts: The Cantonment
area to the south, the temples to the north and the bazaar in the center of the city. Most of Tiruchirappalli's hotels and government and post offices are situated in the cantonment while most of Tiruchirappalli's temples are located in the north. The Rockfort and its temple are situated in the center of the city and surrounded by a bazaar
. Densely-populated industrial and residential areas have recently emerged in the northern part of the city. Residential areas also cover the southern edge of the city. The city is completely surrounded by agricultural fields.
During the summer months of March to May, Tiruchirappalli is extremely hot and dry during daytime. However, the evenings are rendered cool by cold winds that blow from the south-east. It is quite sultry during September and October but cool and pleasant from November to February. According to a popular saying, the climate of Tiruchirappalli is "eight months hot and four hotter."
The city gets its drinking water supply from five headworks on the Cauvery River and 1,470 bore wells linked to 60 service reservoirs in and around the city.
The city is at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south-west of Chennai
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanniyakumari on the National Highway NH 45 and 205 kilometres (127.4 mi) south-east of Coimbatore
and 128 kilometres (79.5 mi) west from the Bay of Bengal
coast, The city of Madurai is situated 161 kilometres (100 mi) south of Tiruchirappalli.
The population is predominantly Hindu
, and there are sizable numbers of Christians and Muslims. Sikhs and Jains
are also present in smaller numbers. The most widely spoken language is Tamil
, though there are also significantly large numbers of people speaking Telugu
, Saurashtrian
and Kannada
The standard dialect of Tamil spoken is the Central Tamil dialect
. Saurashtrian is the mother tongue of the Patnūlkarar
s who migrated from Gujarat in the 16th century AD. There is also a substantial population of Sri Lankan Tamil migrants, most of whom are housed in refugee camps on the outskirts of the city. There are also sizeable populations of Gujaratis and Marwaris
resident in the city. Most Muslims in the city are Labbays. Roman Catholics in Tiruchirappalli are affiliated to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiruchirapalli while Protestants are affiliated to the Trichy-Tanjore Diocese
of the Church of South India
.
As a separate division of the Southern Railway
is headquartered at Tiruchirappalli city, there is a considerably strong Anglo-Indian
population in the city.
prevalent elsewhere in the delta. Most internationally known Christian denominations have a presence in the city thereby giving it the name "Rome of the East". With a substantial population of students and migrant industrial workers from different parts of India, Tiruchirappalli has a more cosmopolitan outlook than the surrounding countryside. Tiruchirappalli is home to many Carnatic musicians and film artistes.
Mohini Alangaram, Garuda Sevai, Vaikunta Ekadasi, Srirangam car festival, Teppakulam float festival
and the Samayapuram Mariamman flower festival
are some of the important festivals celebrated in Tiruchirappalli. Festivals like New Year and Christmas
and other Indian festivals like Deepavali and Holi
are also celebrated with pomp and splendour. There are shopping outlets of handicraft chains Khadi Kraft and Poompuhar and bookshop Higginbotham's
, Trichinopoly cigars, handicrafts. Cheap jewellery made from artificial diamonds are available in the bazaar situated to the immediate north of the Tiruchirappalli railway junction. Boxes of scotch whisky
and photographic film
smuggled from Sri Lanka
are also available. The Trichy Travel Federation (TTF) was formed on May 5, 2009 to promote Tiruchirappalli as a favourable tourist destination.
.
The city has a number of retail and wholesale markets, the chief among them being the Gandhi market
which is an important source of vegetables for the whole region. Other notable markets in the city are the flower bazaar in Srirangam
and the mango
market at Mambazha Salai
.
Tiruchirappalli is a major engineering equipment manufacturing hub in Tamil Nadu
. The Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
, moved to Tiruchirappalli from Nagapattinam
in 1928, is one of the three railway locomotive manufacturing units in Tamil Nadu. The workshops produced 650 conventional and low-container flat wagons during the year 2007-08. The chief workshop manager's office at Golden Rock was awarded a star rating by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency for the proper and regulated usage of electricity in its offices.
A High Pressure Boiler manufacturing plant was set up by the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India's largest public sector engineering company, in May 1965. This was followed by a Seamless Steel Plant set up at a cost of 58 crore
(US$13 million) and a Boiler Auxiliaries Plant. The three manufacturing units constitute the BHEL industrial complex and cover a total area of about 22927.4 square metre. The plant can generate up to 6.2 MW of electricity using coal as a resource. Other important industries in Tiruchirappalli include the Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited (TDCL) which was established at Senthaneerpuram
in the then Golden Rock municipality
in the year 1966. and the Trichy Steel Rolling Mills which was started as a private limited company on June 27, 1961. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited manufactures rectified spirit
, acetaldehyde
, acetic acid
, acetic anhydride
and ethyl acetate
. It is one of the biggest private sector distilleries in Tamil Nadu and produced 13.5 million litres of spirit alcohol
between December 2005 and November 2006. A weapon manufacturing unit and a Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
(HAPP) facility are run by the Ordnance Factory Board of the Government of India. The HAPP unit, set up in the late 1980s, comprises a Flexible manufacturing system
(FMS), the first of its kind in India.
EID Parry
's sugar factory at Pettavaithalai
and Dalmia Group cement factory at Dalmiapuram
are some major manufacturing units located on the outskirts of Tiruchirappalli.
The annual software exports of the Tiruchi region amount to 26.21 crore
(US$5.8 million). The ELCOT IT Park, the first IT park in the city has been commissioned at a cost of 60 crore
(US$13.5 million) and inaugurated by the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. K. Stalin on December 9, 2010. Set up by the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, the park occupies an area of 59.74 hectares (147.6 acre) and constitutes a Special Economic Zone
. The Indian software company Infosys
, is planning to start its operations in Tiruchirappalli.
. There are regular buses to Thanjavur, Pudukkottai
, Kanniyakumari, Chennai
, Madurai
, Palani
, Pondicherry, Coimbatore
, Kodaikanal
and Tirupathi. Buses are also available to destinations in Karnataka
and Kerala
. The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation
(KSRTC) operates special bus services between Bangalore
and Tiruchirapalli during weekends. There are two major bus termini: the Chathram Bus Stand and the Central Bus Station, both situated close to each other. The bus termini are situated at a distance of 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi) from the main railway station. The city has an efficient local bus transportation system - both government-operated as well as private.
The Great Southern of India Railway Company was established in 1853 with its headquarters at Tiruchirappalli. In 1859, the company constructed its first railway line connecting Tiruchirappalli and Nagapattinam. Currently, Tiruchirappalli is an important railway junction in central Tamil Nadu and constitutes a separate division of the Southern Railway
. There are frequent trains to Chennai, Madurai, Chidambaram
, Bangalore
, Rameswaram, Mangalore
, Tirupathi, Kolkata
, Guwahati
and Cochin. There are nine daily express trains operating on the Chennai-Tiruchirappalli line, important among which are Vaigai Express
, Pallavan Express
and the Rockfort Express
. The Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express
plies between Tiruchirappalli and Mysore on a daily basis, stopping at Bangalore
on the way. Tiruchirappalli has rail connectivity with most important cities and towns in India.
The Tiruchirapalli International Airport is the second biggest airport in Tamil Nadu in terms of passenger traffic, cargo traffic as well as aircraft movement. It was first used to handle air traffic in 1938 when Tata Airlines
commercial flights stopped at Tiruchirappalli on the Karachi
-Colombo
route. In 1948, Air Ceylon
commenced daily passenger flights between Tiruchirappalli and Colombo via Jaffna. There are regular flights to Chennai, Kochi
, Kozhikode
, Sri Lanka,Kuala Lumpur
, Sharjah and Kuwait
.
|-
|style="background:#659ec7; color:black;"|
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
in the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n state
States and territories of India
India is a federal union of states comprising twenty-eight states and seven union territories. The states and territories are further subdivided into districts and so on.-List of states and territories:...
of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli District
Tiruchirappalli district
Tiruchirapalli District , also known as Tiruchchirapalli District or Trichy District, is located along the Kaveri River in Tamil Nadu, India...
. It is the fourth largest municipal corporation
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
in Tamil Nadu and also the fourth largest urban agglomeration in the state. Situated at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south of Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanyakumari
Kanyakumari
Kanyakumari is a town in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. It is also sometimes referred to as Cape Comorin. Located at the southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula, it is the geographical end of the Indian mainland. The district in Tamil Nadu where the town is located is called Kanyakumari...
on the National Highway NH 45, it is located almost at the geographic centre of the state.
Tiruchirappalli is believed to have been named after the three-headed demon Trishira
Trishira
Trishira or Trisiras ไทย : ตรีเศียร, that is, one having three heads, was an asura , and reference to him is found in the Ramayana. He was one of the seven sons of Ravana, and his other brothers were Indrajit, Prahasta, Atikaya, Akshayakumara, Devantaka and Narantaka.He engaged Rama in a fight and...
of Hindu mythology who is believed to have indulged in penance and obtained favours at this place. The city is believed to be of significant antiquity and has been ruled by the Early Cholas
Early Cholas
The Early Cholas of the pre and post Sangam period were one of the three main kingdoms of the ancient Tamil country. Their early capitals were Urayur and Kaveripattinam...
, Early Pandyas, Pallavas, Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas rose to prominence during the middle of the 9th century C.E. and established the greatest empire South India had seen. They successfully united the South India under their rule and through their naval strength extended their influence in the Southeast Asian countries such as Srivijaya...
, Later Cholas, Later Pandyas, Delhi Sultanate
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
, Ma'bar Sultanate, Vijayanagar Empire, Nayak Dynasty
Nayak dynasty
Nayak dynasties emerged after the downfall of Vijayanagara Empire. The Nayaks were originally military governors under the supervision of the Vijayanagara Empire. After the battle of Talikota, several of them declared independence...
, the Carnatic state
Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawabs of the Carnatic , ruled the Carnatic region of South India between about 1690 and 1801. They initially had their capital at Arcot,vellore city...
and the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
at different times. The archaeologically important town of Uraiyur which served as the capital of the Early Cholas is a suburb of Tiruchirappalli. Tiruchirappalli has a number of historical monuments, the Rockfort, Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam and the Jambukeswarar temple at Thiruvanaikaval being the most prominent among them.
Tiruchirappalli is an important industrial and educational hub of central Tamil Nadu. The factories of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
The Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project or HAPP in short is a first class defence establishment operated by the Indian Ordnance Factories Services , under the aegis of the Ordnance Factories Board, headquartered at Kolkata , under the overall charge of Ministry of Defence, Government of India.This is...
and Golden Rock Railway Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops is a firm in India that manufactures railway locomotives and other kinds of rolling stock. It is under Southern Railways of Indian Railway Board. The factory is based in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu...
are located in Tiruchirappalli. The National Institutes of Technology
National Institutes of Technology
The National Institutes of Technology , are a group of higher education engineering institutes in India. Comprising thirty autonomous institutes, they are located in one each major state/territory of India. On their inception decades ago, all NITs were referred as Regional Engineering Colleges ...
(NIT), Indian Institute of Management, Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University is a university in the city of Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu state, India. It has affiliated colleges in districts of the state, including Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Tiruchirapalli. It is a recognised university, supported by the...
and Anna University of Technology have their campuses in the city.
Etymology
The name Tiruchirappalli is believed by some to have been derived from the Sanskrit "Trishirapuram" - 'Trishira' meaning "three-headed" and 'palli' or 'puram' meaning "City". According to Hindu mythologyHindu mythology
Hindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
, the town got its name from the three-headed demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
Trishira
Trishira
Trishira or Trisiras ไทย : ตรีเศียร, that is, one having three heads, was an asura , and reference to him is found in the Ramayana. He was one of the seven sons of Ravana, and his other brothers were Indrajit, Prahasta, Atikaya, Akshayakumara, Devantaka and Narantaka.He engaged Rama in a fight and...
who meditated on the Hindu god Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
near the present-day Tiruchirappalli and obtained favours at this place. However, this derivation is not universally accepted.
Other derivations of Tiruchirappalli have been provided by the Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
scholar C. P. Brown who suggested that Tiruchirappalli might be a derivative of the word 'Chiruta-palli' meaning "little town". In an inscription of the sixteenth century, Tiruchirappalli is mentioned as Tiru-ssila-palli meaning "holy-rock-town" in Tamil and Henry Yule
Henry Yule
Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...
and Arthur Coke Burnell
Arthur Coke Burnell
Arthur Coke Burnell , English scholar in Sanskrit, was born at St. Briavels, Gloucestershire.He was sent to King's College, London, where he met Professor V. Fausböll of Copenhagen, who seems to have turned towards Indian studies a mind that had already shown a keen interest in languages and...
believed that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from it. A few other scholars feel that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from Tiru-chinna-palli meaning "holy little town". The Madras Glossary gives the root as Tiruććināppalli or the "holy (tiru) village (palli) of the shina (Cissampelos pareira
Cissampelos pareira
Cissampelos pareira is a species of flowering plant in the family Menispermaceae.-Medicinal uses:Cissampelos pareira is used in Chinese herbology, where it is called xí shēng téng or . The species is also known as abuta and is also called laghu patha in Ayurvedic medicine...
) plant".
During British rule, Tiruchirappalli was commonly referred to using the erroneous spelling "Trichinopoly". The shortened forms "Trichy" or "Tiruchi" are more frequently used in common parlance.
History
Tiruchirappalli is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Tamil NaduTamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
, its earliest settlements dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. Sir William Larke, Director of the British Iron and Steel Federation, stated:
Uraiyur, which served as the capital of the Early Cholas from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD is identified by some with a suburb of present-day Tiruchirappalli. The city is mentioned as "Orthoura" by the historian, Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
. The world's oldest surviving dam, the Kallanai, was built by Karikala Chola
Karikala Chola
Karikala Chola or Karikala Chozhan was one of the great Tamil kings of Early Chola during the Sangam period. He was the son of Ilamcetcenni and ruled around 270 BC....
across the Kaveri River
Kaveri River
The Kaveri , also spelled Cauvery in English, is a large Indian river. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the...
, about 24 kilometres (14.9 mi) from Uraiyur.
The medieval history of Tiruchirappalli begins with the reign of the Pallava king Mahendravarman I
Mahendravarman I
Mahendravarman I was a Pallava king who ruled the Northern regions of what forms present-day Tamil Nadu in India in the early 7th century. He was the son of Simhavishnu, who defeated the Kalabhras and re-established the Pallava kingdom....
who ruled over South India in the 6th century AD. Mahendravarman constructed the cave-temples within the Rockfort. Following the demise of the Pallavas in the 8th century AD, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas rose to prominence during the middle of the 9th century C.E. and established the greatest empire South India had seen. They successfully united the South India under their rule and through their naval strength extended their influence in the Southeast Asian countries such as Srivijaya...
who ruled till the 13th century AD.
When the Chola Empire began to decline, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Pandyas who ruled from 1216 to 1311 when they were defeated by Malik Kafur
Malik Kafur
Malik Kafur, General , or Chand Ram as his name was originally, was a slave who became a head general in the army of Alauddin Khilji, ruler of the Delhi sultanate from 1296 to 1316 AD. He was originally seized by Alauddin's army after the army conquered the city of Khambhat...
. The victorious armies of the Delhi Sultanate
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
are believed to have plundered and ravaged the kingdom. According to a local legend, the idol of the Hindu god Ranganatha
Ranganatha
Ranganātha , also known as Sri Ranganatha, Ranganathar, or Ranga, is a Hindu deity, more well known in South India. The deity is a resting form of Lord Vishnu, one of the foremost of Hindu Gods. His consort is Goddess Lakshmi, also known as Ranganayaki, Thayar...
in the temple of Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
was saved from destruction by burying it under a bilva tree. Tiruchirappalli was ruled by the Delhi and Madurai
Madurai Sultanate
The Madurai Sultanate or the Ma'bar Sultanate was a short lived independent Muslim kingdom based in the city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India during the 14th century CE. It lasted from 1335 until 1378...
sultanates from 1311 to 1378 when it was annexed by the Vijayanagar Empire. Tiruchirappalli remained a part of the Vijayanagar Empire and its successor, the Madurai Nayak kingdom till 1736. It served as the capital of the Madurai Nayak kingdom from 1616 to 1634 and from 1665 to 1736. In 1736, the last Madurai Nayak ruler Meenakshi
Meenakshi (Nayak queen)
Meenakshi was the last ruler in the Madurai Nayaks line. She was the granddaughter-in-law of Rani Mangammal.Vijaya Ranga Chokkanatha died in 1731, and was succeeded by his widow Meenakshi, who acted as Queen-Regent on behalf of a young boy she had adopted as the heir of her dead husband...
committed suicide and Tiruchirappalli was conquered by Chanda Sahib
Chanda Sahib
Chanda Sahib was the Nawab of the Carnatic between 1749 and 1752. His birth name is Husayn Dost Khan. He was the son-in-law of the Nawab of Carnatic Dost Ali Khan, under whom he worked as a Dewan. He belonged the Muslim Nait community which had ruled the Carnatic under the Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan...
who ruled the kingdom from 1736 to 1741 when he was captured and imprisoned by the Marathas. Tiruchirappalli was administered by the Maratha general Murari Rao
Murari Rao
Murari Rao Ghorpade, known simply as Murari Rao, was a soldier and army general in the Maratha Army who administered the fort of Tiruchirappalli and surrounding areas from 1741 to 1743. His administration marks the only period of Maratha occupation in Tiruchirappalli...
from 1741 to 1743, when it was annexed to the Carnatic kingdom. When the Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawabs of the Carnatic , ruled the Carnatic region of South India between about 1690 and 1801. They initially had their capital at Arcot,vellore city...
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was the Nawab of Arcot in India and an ally of the British East India Company. Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was born to Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan, by his second wife, Fakhr un-nisa Begum Sahiba, was a niece of Sayyid Ali Khan Safavi ul-Mosawi of Persia, sometime Naib suba...
was dethroned by Chanda Sahib in the year 1751, he fled to Tiruchirappalli and set up his base there. The subsequent siege of Tiruchirappalli by Chanda Sahib led to the Second Carnatic War.
At the end of the Second Carnatic War, the kingdom was eventually restored to Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah who was later forced to cede Tiruchirappalli to the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
for non-payment of dues. The district of Trichinopoly
Trichinopoly District (Madras Presidency)
The Trichinopoly district was a district of the erstwhile Madras Presidency of British India. It covered the present-day districts of Tiruchirappalli, Karur, Ariyalur and Perambalur in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The administrative headquarters was the town of Trichinopoly, Trichy or Tiruchi,...
was constituted in 1801 with the city of Trichinopoly or Tiruchirappalli as its capital and John Wallace as its first District Collector.
During the Company Raj and later, the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
, Tiruchirappalli emerged as one of the most important cities in India. It was popular throughout the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
for its unique variety of cheroot
Cheroot
The cheroot or stogie is a cylindrical cigar with both ends clipped during manufacture. Since cheroots do not taper, they are inexpensive to roll mechanically, and their low cost makes them particularly popular. Typically, stogies have a length of 3.5 to 6.5 inches, and a ring gauge of 34 to...
known as the Trichinopoly cigar
Trichinopoly cigar
Trichinopoly cigar, also called Trichies or Tritchies, is a type of cheroot associated with the town of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Trichinopoly cigar was actually manufactured from tobacco grown near the town of Dindigul near the present-day Tiruchirappalli and formed one of India's...
. According to the 1871 Indian census, the first in British India, Tiruchirappalli had a population of 76,530 making it the second largest city in Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
, next only to the capital city of Madras.
In the early 20th century, Tiruchirappalli grew further achieving a decadal population growth rate of 36.9 percent during the period 1941-51. However, following India's independence, Tiruchirappalli has fallen behind other cities as Salem and Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
in terms of growth. As of 2001, Tiruchirappalli was the fourth largest city in Tamil Nadu after Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai.
Geography and climate
Tiruchirappalli is located at 10.8050°N 78.6856°E. The average elevation is 88 metres (288.7 ft). It is located almost at the geographic centre of the state of Tamil NaduTamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The topology of Tiruchirappalli is almost flat with a few isolated hillocks rising above the surface, the highest of which is the Rockfort. The city spread over an area of 146.7 square kilometres (56.6 sq mi) is situated on the plains between the Shevaroy Hills
Shevaroy Hills
Shevaroys is the anglicised name for the Servarayan which lie near the town of Salem in Tamil Nadu, India. It is a detached hill range, covering an area of 50 sq. m., with plateaus from 4000 to 5000 ft. above sea-level. They include the sanatorium and several old coffee plantations...
to the north and the Palni Hills
Palni Hills
The Palni Hills are a mountain range in Tamil Nadu state of South India. The Palni Hills are an eastward extension of the Western Ghats ranges, which run parallel to the west coast of India. The Palni Hills adjoin the high Anamalai range on the west, and extend east into the plains of Tamil Nadu,...
to the south and south-west. The city is situated at the head of the Cauvery Delta which commences 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of Tiruchirappalli where the Cauvery River branches into two streams forming the island of Srirangam
Srirangam Island
Srirangam Island is a river island situated within the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It is formed by the river Cauvery and the Kollidam, a tributary of the Cauvery. The island is in length and one and wide. It is bounded by the Upper Anaicut to the west and the Grand Anaicut to the...
.
The land immediately surrounding the Kaveri is made up of fertile alluvial soil deposited by the Kaveri and its tributary, the Kollidam. Further south, the surface is covered by poor-quality black soil. The alluvial soil is conducible for agriculture and crops such as ragi (finger millet
Finger millet
Eleusine coracana, commonly Finger millet , also known as African millet or Ragi is an annual plant widely grown as a cereal in the arid areas of Africa and Asia. E...
) and cholam (maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
) are grown. North-east of Tiruchirappalli runs a belt of cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
rock known as the "Trichinopoly Group
Trichinopoly Group
The Trichinopoly Group is a geological formation in India whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. It lies between the Ootatoor and Ariyalur groups. It is broad in its southern extremity but thins as it gradually proceeds northwards as it ultimately meets the Ariyalur group...
". Layers of archaean rocks, granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and gneiss
Gneiss
Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...
covered by a thin bed of conglomeratic
Conglomerate (geology)
A conglomerate is a rock consisting of individual clasts within a finer-grained matrix that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts...
laterite
Laterite
Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock...
are found to the south-east of the city. The flora of Tiruchirappalli city and its surrounding areas is similar to that of the Cauvery delta. Cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
are found in large numbers in the region.
The city is divided into three parts: The Cantonment
Tiruchirappalli Cantonment
The Tiruchirappalli Cantonment is a residential neighbourhood in the city of Tiruchirappalli. It originated as a cantonment of the Madras Regiment in the 18th century. Most of the hotels and restaurants and the main tourist office and post office of Tiruchirappalli are located here...
area to the south, the temples to the north and the bazaar in the center of the city. Most of Tiruchirappalli's hotels and government and post offices are situated in the cantonment while most of Tiruchirappalli's temples are located in the north. The Rockfort and its temple are situated in the center of the city and surrounded by a bazaar
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...
. Densely-populated industrial and residential areas have recently emerged in the northern part of the city. Residential areas also cover the southern edge of the city. The city is completely surrounded by agricultural fields.
During the summer months of March to May, Tiruchirappalli is extremely hot and dry during daytime. However, the evenings are rendered cool by cold winds that blow from the south-east. It is quite sultry during September and October but cool and pleasant from November to February. According to a popular saying, the climate of Tiruchirappalli is "eight months hot and four hotter."
The city gets its drinking water supply from five headworks on the Cauvery River and 1,470 bore wells linked to 60 service reservoirs in and around the city.
The city is at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south-west of Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanniyakumari on the National Highway NH 45 and 205 kilometres (127.4 mi) south-east of Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
and 128 kilometres (79.5 mi) west from the Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...
coast, The city of Madurai is situated 161 kilometres (100 mi) south of Tiruchirappalli.
Demographics
According to the 2001 census, the Tiruchirappalli had a population of 752,066 with in the corporation limits at a density of 5,127 persons per km2, with 376,125 men (50.01 percent) and 375,941 women(49.99 percent). The urban agglomeration had a population of 866,354. Tiruchirappalli metropolitan area constitutes the fourth largest metropolitan area in Tamil Nadu and the 47th in India. 11.41 percent of the population was under six years of age. Tiruchirappalli had a literacy rate of 88.71 percent. The provisional results of the 2011 India census released by the Government of India give the population of Tiruchirappalli metropolitan area as 846,915 and the urban agglomeration as 1,021,717. There are a total of 286 slums in Tiruchirappalli with a population of about 162,000.The population is predominantly Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
, and there are sizable numbers of Christians and Muslims. Sikhs and Jains
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
are also present in smaller numbers. The most widely spoken language is Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, though there are also significantly large numbers of people speaking Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
, Saurashtrian
Saurashtra language
Sourashtra or "Sourashtras" or ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬꢵ refers to a community of people who had their original homes in Gujarat and presently settled almost in all major Towns of Tamil Nadu and are concentrated more in Madurai which is considered as their cultural Headquarters.They have also settled in...
and Kannada
Kannada language
Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
The standard dialect of Tamil spoken is the Central Tamil dialect
Central Tamil dialect
The Central Tamil dialect is a dialect of Tamil spoken in the districts of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Tiruchirapalli in central Tamil Nadu, India and to some extent, in the neighbouring Cuddalore and Pudukkottai districts.Along with Madurai Tamil, the Central Tamil dialect is considered...
. Saurashtrian is the mother tongue of the Patnūlkarar
Patnulkarar
Patnūlkaras are a Hindu community of weavers from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. They are generally of Gujarati origin.- History :The word Patnūlkaran means "silk-thread people". These people are first mentioned as Pattavayaka, the Sanskrit equivalent of Patnulkaran in the Mandasor inscriptions of...
s who migrated from Gujarat in the 16th century AD. There is also a substantial population of Sri Lankan Tamil migrants, most of whom are housed in refugee camps on the outskirts of the city. There are also sizeable populations of Gujaratis and Marwaris
Marwaris
Marwari or Marwadi or Rajasthani people are Indian ethnic group, that inhabit the Rajasthan region of India. Their language Rajasthani is a part of the western group of Indo-Aryan languages....
resident in the city. Most Muslims in the city are Labbays. Roman Catholics in Tiruchirappalli are affiliated to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiruchirapalli while Protestants are affiliated to the Trichy-Tanjore Diocese
Trichy-Tanjore Diocese
-The Church of South India - Tiruchirappalli Thanjavur Diocese:The CSI Tiruchirappalli Thanjavur Diocese was one of the first 14 Dioceses to be formed at the inaugural of the Church of South India in 1947. This is headed by the Church of South India Synod...
of the Church of South India
Church of South India
The Church of South India is the successor of the Church of England in India. It came into being in 1947 as a union of Anglican and Protestant churches in South India. With a membership of over 3.8 million, it is India's second largest Christian church after the Roman Catholic Church in India...
.
As a separate division of the Southern Railway
Southern Railway
The following railways or railroads are or were called the Southern Railway or Southern Railroad:- Europe :*Austrian Southern Railway, a railway company operating in Austria-Hungary between 1841 and 1923*South railway...
is headquartered at Tiruchirappalli city, there is a considerably strong Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
population in the city.
Culture and society
A resident of Tiruchirappalli is generally referred to as a Tiruchiite. The city formed a part of the traditional Chola heartland and has a number of exquisitely-sculpted temples and forts. Situated at the edge of the Cauvery Delta, the culture of Tiruchirappalli is similar to the Brahminical cultureBrahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
prevalent elsewhere in the delta. Most internationally known Christian denominations have a presence in the city thereby giving it the name "Rome of the East". With a substantial population of students and migrant industrial workers from different parts of India, Tiruchirappalli has a more cosmopolitan outlook than the surrounding countryside. Tiruchirappalli is home to many Carnatic musicians and film artistes.
Mohini Alangaram, Garuda Sevai, Vaikunta Ekadasi, Srirangam car festival, Teppakulam float festival
Theppotsavam
Theppotsavam, or float festival, is a Hindu religious festival carried out in Hindu temples in parts of South India, mainly Tamil Nadu during the month of Chitthirai or Chaitra...
and the Samayapuram Mariamman flower festival
Poochoriyal
The flower festival or flower sprinkling festival is an important festival ceberated in the Samayapuram Mariamman temple near Tiruchirappalli. This festival is usually held in the Tamil month of Masi. During this festival, devotees throng the temple to sprinkle flowers on the idol of the Hindu...
are some of the important festivals celebrated in Tiruchirappalli. Festivals like New Year and Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and other Indian festivals like Deepavali and Holi
Holi
Holi , is a religious spring festival celebrated by Hindus. Holi is also known as festival of Colours. It is primarily observed in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and countries with large Indic diaspora populations following Hinduism, such as Suriname, Malaysia, Guyana, South Africa, Trinidad, United...
are also celebrated with pomp and splendour. There are shopping outlets of handicraft chains Khadi Kraft and Poompuhar and bookshop Higginbotham's
Higginbotham's
The Higginbotham's is an Indian company of book sellers and publishers based in the city of Chennai. The main bookstore at Mount Road, Chennai has the reputation of being India's oldest bookshop in existence.- History :...
, Trichinopoly cigars, handicrafts. Cheap jewellery made from artificial diamonds are available in the bazaar situated to the immediate north of the Tiruchirappalli railway junction. Boxes of scotch whisky
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky is whisky made in Scotland.Scotch whisky is divided into five distinct categories: Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Single Grain Scotch Whisky, Blended Malt Scotch Whisky , Blended Grain Scotch Whisky, and Blended Scotch Whisky.All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three...
and photographic film
Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...
smuggled from Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
are also available. The Trichy Travel Federation (TTF) was formed on May 5, 2009 to promote Tiruchirappalli as a favourable tourist destination.
Economy
The economy of Tiruchirappalli is mainly industrial. During British rule, the city was known for its tanneries, cigar-manufacturing units and oil presses. At its peak, over 12 million cigars were manufactured and exported annually. Tanned hides and skins from Tiruchirappalli were exported to the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
The city has a number of retail and wholesale markets, the chief among them being the Gandhi market
Mahatma Gandhi Market
The Mahatma Gandhi Market is a wholesale fruit and vegetable market in the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. Its construction was begun as the Fort Market in 1867 and completed in 1868. The market was expanded in 1927, when P. Rathinavelu Thevar was the mayor of Tiruchirappalli and...
which is an important source of vegetables for the whole region. Other notable markets in the city are the flower bazaar in Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
and the mango
Mango
The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to India from where it spread all over the world. It is also the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. While...
market at Mambazha Salai
Mambazha Salai
Mambazha Salai , meaning Mango Street in Tamil, is a commercial neighbourhood of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It houses one of the city's principal mango markets....
.
Tiruchirappalli is a major engineering equipment manufacturing hub in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops is a firm in India that manufactures railway locomotives and other kinds of rolling stock. It is under Southern Railways of Indian Railway Board. The factory is based in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu...
, moved to Tiruchirappalli from Nagapattinam
Nagapattinam
Nagapattinam is a town in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Nagapattinam District. It is a prominent seaport on the east coast of India and an important centre of trade and commerce.The town of Nagapattinam dates back to the Sangam period...
in 1928, is one of the three railway locomotive manufacturing units in Tamil Nadu. The workshops produced 650 conventional and low-container flat wagons during the year 2007-08. The chief workshop manager's office at Golden Rock was awarded a star rating by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency for the proper and regulated usage of electricity in its offices.
A High Pressure Boiler manufacturing plant was set up by the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India's largest public sector engineering company, in May 1965. This was followed by a Seamless Steel Plant set up at a cost of 58 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$13 million) and a Boiler Auxiliaries Plant. The three manufacturing units constitute the BHEL industrial complex and cover a total area of about 22927.4 square metre. The plant can generate up to 6.2 MW of electricity using coal as a resource. Other important industries in Tiruchirappalli include the Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited (TDCL) which was established at Senthaneerpuram
Senthaneerpuram
Senthaneerpuram is an industrial suburb of the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited was established here in 1966. Currently, the suburb forms a part of the Golden Rock zone of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation....
in the then Golden Rock municipality
Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli
Golden Rock is a zone of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. The factories of the Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops and the residential quarters of its employees are located here.- See Also :* Battle of Golden Rock...
in the year 1966. and the Trichy Steel Rolling Mills which was started as a private limited company on June 27, 1961. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited manufactures rectified spirit
Rectified spirit
A rectified spirit, rectified alcohol, or neutral spirit is highly concentrated ethanol which has been purified by means of repeated distillation, a process that is called rectification. It typically contains 95% alcohol by volume...
, acetaldehyde
Acetaldehyde
Acetaldehyde is an organic chemical compound with the formula CH3CHO or MeCHO. It is one of the most important aldehydes, occurring widely in nature and being produced on a large scale industrially. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in coffee, bread, and ripe fruit, and is produced by plants as part...
, acetic acid
Acetic acid
Acetic acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH3CO2H . It is a colourless liquid that when undiluted is also called glacial acetic acid. Acetic acid is the main component of vinegar , and has a distinctive sour taste and pungent smell...
, acetic anhydride
Acetic anhydride
Acetic anhydride, or ethanoic anhydride, is the chemical compound with the formula 2O. Commonly abbreviated Ac2O, it is the simplest isolatable acid anhydride and is a widely used reagent in organic synthesis...
and ethyl acetate
Ethyl acetate
Ethyl acetate is the organic compound with the formula CH3COOCH2CH3. This colorless liquid has a characteristic sweet smell and is used in glues, nail polish removers, and cigarettes...
. It is one of the biggest private sector distilleries in Tamil Nadu and produced 13.5 million litres of spirit alcohol
Distilled beverage
A distilled beverage, liquor, or spirit is an alcoholic beverage containing ethanol that is produced by distilling ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit, or vegetables...
between December 2005 and November 2006. A weapon manufacturing unit and a Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
The Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project or HAPP in short is a first class defence establishment operated by the Indian Ordnance Factories Services , under the aegis of the Ordnance Factories Board, headquartered at Kolkata , under the overall charge of Ministry of Defence, Government of India.This is...
(HAPP) facility are run by the Ordnance Factory Board of the Government of India. The HAPP unit, set up in the late 1980s, comprises a Flexible manufacturing system
Flexible manufacturing system
A flexible manufacturing system is a manufacturing system in which there is some amount of flexibility that allows the system to react in the case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted...
(FMS), the first of its kind in India.
EID Parry
EID Parry
EID Parry Limited is a public company, headquartered in Chennai, South India, which has been in business for more than 200 years. It has many firsts to its credit, including manufacturing of fertilizers for the first time in the Indian subcontinent...
's sugar factory at Pettavaithalai
Pettavaithalai
Pettavaithalai is a town between Kulithalai and Tiruchirappalli. The distance from Pettavaithalai to Trichy is 24 km and Pettavaithalai to Kulithalai is 8 km. The Pettavaithalai town is an important place of pilgrimage. The important temples are Karumbai Amman Temple and...
and Dalmia Group cement factory at Dalmiapuram
Dalmiapuram
Dalmiapuram or Kallakudi is a small township in the Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu in India. It is located at a distance of 40 km from Tiruchirapalli Junction.Dalmiapuram is the hometown of the renowned Dalmia Cements....
are some major manufacturing units located on the outskirts of Tiruchirappalli.
The annual software exports of the Tiruchi region amount to 26.21 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$5.8 million). The ELCOT IT Park, the first IT park in the city has been commissioned at a cost of 60 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$13.5 million) and inaugurated by the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. K. Stalin on December 9, 2010. Set up by the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, the park occupies an area of 59.74 hectares (147.6 acre) and constitutes a Special Economic Zone
Special Economic Zone
A Special Economic Zone is a geographical region that has economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical or national laws...
. The Indian software company Infosys
Infosys
Infosys Limited, formerly Infosys Technologies Limited is a global technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is the second largest IT exporter in India with 133,560 employees as of March 2011. It has offices in 33 countries and development centers in India, China,...
, is planning to start its operations in Tiruchirappalli.
Transport
Tiruchirappalli is well connected by road, rail and air with most cities and towns in India. The National Highways NH 45, NH 45B, NH 67, NH 210 and NH 227 pass through the city. Tiruchirappalli forms a part of the Division no. 1 of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation which is headquartered at KumbakonamKumbakonam
Kumbakonam , also spelt as Coombaconum in the records of British India , is a town and a special grade municipality in the Thanjavur district in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located 40 kilometres from Thanjavur and 272 kilometres from Chennai, it is the headquarters of the Kumbakonam...
. There are regular buses to Thanjavur, Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai is a town and a municipality in Pudukkottai district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Pudukkottai District was carved out of Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur districts in January 1974.It is the administrative headquarters of Pudukkottai District....
, Kanniyakumari, Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, Madurai
Madurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
, Palani
Palani
Palani is a city and a municipality in the Dindigul district of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located about 100 km South of Coimbatore City and 60 km west of Dindigul...
, Pondicherry, Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
, Kodaikanal
Kodaikanal
-Climate:Kodaikanal has a monsoon-influenced subtropical highland climate . The temperatures are cool throughout the year due to the high elevation of the city.-Economy:...
and Tirupathi. Buses are also available to destinations in Karnataka
Karnataka
Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
and Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
. The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation or KSRTC is the state owned road transportation company in Karnataka.-About:KSRTC was set up in the year 1961 under the provisions of Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. It is wholly owned by the Government of Karnataka. The Government of India is also...
(KSRTC) operates special bus services between Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
and Tiruchirapalli during weekends. There are two major bus termini: the Chathram Bus Stand and the Central Bus Station, both situated close to each other. The bus termini are situated at a distance of 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi) from the main railway station. The city has an efficient local bus transportation system - both government-operated as well as private.
The Great Southern of India Railway Company was established in 1853 with its headquarters at Tiruchirappalli. In 1859, the company constructed its first railway line connecting Tiruchirappalli and Nagapattinam. Currently, Tiruchirappalli is an important railway junction in central Tamil Nadu and constitutes a separate division of the Southern Railway
Southern Railway (India)
The Southern Railway is the earliest of the 16 zones of the Indian Railways created in independent India. It was created on April 14, 1951 by merging three state railways namely Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway, and the Mysore State Railway. The South Indian Railway...
. There are frequent trains to Chennai, Madurai, Chidambaram
Chidambaram
Chidambaram is a fast growing industrial city in Eastern part of Tamil Nadu and the taluk headquarters of the Cuddalore district. It is located in 58 km from Pondicherry, 60 km from Karaikal, and 240 km south of Chennai by rail...
, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, Rameswaram, Mangalore
Mangalore
Mangalore is the chief port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located about west of the state capital, Bangalore. Mangalore lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghat mountain ranges, and is the administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district in south western...
, Tirupathi, Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, Guwahati
Guwahati
Guwahati, Pragjyotishpura in ancient Assam formerly known as Gauhati is a metropolis,the largest city of Assam in India and ancient urban area in North East India, with a population of 963,429. It is also the largest metropolitan area in north-eastern India...
and Cochin. There are nine daily express trains operating on the Chennai-Tiruchirappalli line, important among which are Vaigai Express
Vaigai express
The Vaigai Express is a super fast day express train running between Chennai and Madurai. It is one of the more prestigious trains of the Southern Railway zone of the Indian railways....
, Pallavan Express
Pallavan Express
The Pallavan Express is a superfast train operated by the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. This train connects the cities of Tiruchirapalli and Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the more prestigious trains of the Southern Railway.-General information:The train...
and the Rockfort Express
Rockfort Express
The Rockfort Express is the most popular night express train that connects Trichy and Chennai Egmore in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and extends till Kumbakonam. The train numbered 16178 departs from Kumbakonam at 19:55 Hours and reaches Trichy at 21:55 Hours as a link Express...
. The Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express
Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express
The Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express is a Superfast train operated by the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. This train connects the town of Mayiladuthurai with Mysore...
plies between Tiruchirappalli and Mysore on a daily basis, stopping at Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
on the way. Tiruchirappalli has rail connectivity with most important cities and towns in India.
The Tiruchirapalli International Airport is the second biggest airport in Tamil Nadu in terms of passenger traffic, cargo traffic as well as aircraft movement. It was first used to handle air traffic in 1938 when Tata Airlines
Tata Airlines
Tata Airlines, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. was founded by J. R. D. Tata in 1932 as Tata Sons.It was started as a mail service between Karachi, Bombay and Madras.-The beginning:...
commercial flights stopped at Tiruchirappalli on the Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
-Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
route. In 1948, Air Ceylon
Air Ceylon
Air Ceylon was the flag carrier airline of Sri Lanka from 1947 until 1978, when it was replaced by Air Lanka.- History :...
commenced daily passenger flights between Tiruchirappalli and Colombo via Jaffna. There are regular flights to Chennai, Kochi
Kochi
-Places:* Kochi, a city in the state of Kerala, India, formerly known as Cochin* Kingdom of Cochin, a former feudal city-state on Malabar Coast, India** Fort Kochi, one of the three main urban components which constitute the present day city of Kochi, Kerala, India...
, Kozhikode
Kozhikode
Kozhikode During Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, Kozhikkode was dubbed the "City of Spices" for its role as the major trading point of eastern spices. Kozhikode was once the capital of an independent kingdom of the same name and later of the erstwhile Malabar District...
, Sri Lanka,Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
, Sharjah and Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
.
Administration and politics
{|cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="1" style="float:right; border-collapse:collapse; border:2px white solid; font-size:x-small; font-family:verdana;"|-
|style="background:#659ec7; color:black;"|
{| cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="1" style="background:white; border-collapse:collapse; border:1px #747170 solid; font-size:x-small; font-family:verdana;"
|-
|Mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
|
|-
|Deputy Mayor
Deputy Mayor
Deputy mayor is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official in many local governments. Many elected deputy mayors are members of the city council who are given the title and serve as acting mayor in the mayor's absence...
|
|-
|Corporation Commissioner
|
|-
|Commissioner of Police
|
Tiruchirappalli ( (tiruccirāppaḷḷi) ) (spelt as Trichinopoly in the records of British India), also called Tiruchi or Trichy , is a city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
in the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n state
States and territories of India
India is a federal union of states comprising twenty-eight states and seven union territories. The states and territories are further subdivided into districts and so on.-List of states and territories:...
of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli District
Tiruchirappalli district
Tiruchirapalli District , also known as Tiruchchirapalli District or Trichy District, is located along the Kaveri River in Tamil Nadu, India...
. It is the fourth largest municipal corporation
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
in Tamil Nadu and also the fourth largest urban agglomeration in the state. Situated at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south of Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanyakumari
Kanyakumari
Kanyakumari is a town in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. It is also sometimes referred to as Cape Comorin. Located at the southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula, it is the geographical end of the Indian mainland. The district in Tamil Nadu where the town is located is called Kanyakumari...
on the National Highway NH 45, it is located almost at the geographic centre of the state.
Tiruchirappalli is believed to have been named after the three-headed demon Trishira
Trishira
Trishira or Trisiras ไทย : ตรีเศียร, that is, one having three heads, was an asura , and reference to him is found in the Ramayana. He was one of the seven sons of Ravana, and his other brothers were Indrajit, Prahasta, Atikaya, Akshayakumara, Devantaka and Narantaka.He engaged Rama in a fight and...
of Hindu mythology who is believed to have indulged in penance and obtained favours at this place. The city is believed to be of significant antiquity and has been ruled by the Early Cholas
Early Cholas
The Early Cholas of the pre and post Sangam period were one of the three main kingdoms of the ancient Tamil country. Their early capitals were Urayur and Kaveripattinam...
, Early Pandyas, Pallavas, Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas rose to prominence during the middle of the 9th century C.E. and established the greatest empire South India had seen. They successfully united the South India under their rule and through their naval strength extended their influence in the Southeast Asian countries such as Srivijaya...
, Later Cholas, Later Pandyas, Delhi Sultanate
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
, Ma'bar Sultanate, Vijayanagar Empire, Nayak Dynasty
Nayak dynasty
Nayak dynasties emerged after the downfall of Vijayanagara Empire. The Nayaks were originally military governors under the supervision of the Vijayanagara Empire. After the battle of Talikota, several of them declared independence...
, the Carnatic state
Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawabs of the Carnatic , ruled the Carnatic region of South India between about 1690 and 1801. They initially had their capital at Arcot,vellore city...
and the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
at different times. The archaeologically important town of Uraiyur which served as the capital of the Early Cholas is a suburb of Tiruchirappalli. Tiruchirappalli has a number of historical monuments, the Rockfort, Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam and the Jambukeswarar temple at Thiruvanaikaval being the most prominent among them.
Tiruchirappalli is an important industrial and educational hub of central Tamil Nadu. The factories of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
The Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project or HAPP in short is a first class defence establishment operated by the Indian Ordnance Factories Services , under the aegis of the Ordnance Factories Board, headquartered at Kolkata , under the overall charge of Ministry of Defence, Government of India.This is...
and Golden Rock Railway Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops is a firm in India that manufactures railway locomotives and other kinds of rolling stock. It is under Southern Railways of Indian Railway Board. The factory is based in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu...
are located in Tiruchirappalli. The National Institutes of Technology
National Institutes of Technology
The National Institutes of Technology , are a group of higher education engineering institutes in India. Comprising thirty autonomous institutes, they are located in one each major state/territory of India. On their inception decades ago, all NITs were referred as Regional Engineering Colleges ...
(NIT), Indian Institute of Management, Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University is a university in the city of Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu state, India. It has affiliated colleges in districts of the state, including Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Tiruchirapalli. It is a recognised university, supported by the...
and Anna University of Technology have their campuses in the city.
Etymology
The name Tiruchirappalli is believed by some to have been derived from the Sanskrit "Trishirapuram" - 'Trishira' meaning "three-headed" and 'palli' or 'puram' meaning "City". According to Hindu mythologyHindu mythology
Hindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
, the town got its name from the three-headed demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
Trishira
Trishira
Trishira or Trisiras ไทย : ตรีเศียร, that is, one having three heads, was an asura , and reference to him is found in the Ramayana. He was one of the seven sons of Ravana, and his other brothers were Indrajit, Prahasta, Atikaya, Akshayakumara, Devantaka and Narantaka.He engaged Rama in a fight and...
who meditated on the Hindu god Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
near the present-day Tiruchirappalli and obtained favours at this place. However, this derivation is not universally accepted.
Other derivations of Tiruchirappalli have been provided by the Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
scholar C. P. Brown who suggested that Tiruchirappalli might be a derivative of the word 'Chiruta-palli' meaning "little town". In an inscription of the sixteenth century, Tiruchirappalli is mentioned as Tiru-ssila-palli meaning "holy-rock-town" in Tamil and Henry Yule
Henry Yule
Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...
and Arthur Coke Burnell
Arthur Coke Burnell
Arthur Coke Burnell , English scholar in Sanskrit, was born at St. Briavels, Gloucestershire.He was sent to King's College, London, where he met Professor V. Fausböll of Copenhagen, who seems to have turned towards Indian studies a mind that had already shown a keen interest in languages and...
believed that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from it. A few other scholars feel that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from Tiru-chinna-palli meaning "holy little town". The Madras Glossary gives the root as Tiruććināppalli or the "holy (tiru) village (palli) of the shina (Cissampelos pareira
Cissampelos pareira
Cissampelos pareira is a species of flowering plant in the family Menispermaceae.-Medicinal uses:Cissampelos pareira is used in Chinese herbology, where it is called xí shēng téng or . The species is also known as abuta and is also called laghu patha in Ayurvedic medicine...
) plant".
During British rule, Tiruchirappalli was commonly referred to using the erroneous spelling "Trichinopoly". The shortened forms "Trichy" or "Tiruchi" are more frequently used in common parlance.
History
Tiruchirappalli is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Tamil NaduTamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
, its earliest settlements dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. Sir William Larke, Director of the British Iron and Steel Federation, stated:
Uraiyur, which served as the capital of the Early Cholas from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD is identified by some with a suburb of present-day Tiruchirappalli. The city is mentioned as "Orthoura" by the historian, Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
. The world's oldest surviving dam, the Kallanai, was built by Karikala Chola
Karikala Chola
Karikala Chola or Karikala Chozhan was one of the great Tamil kings of Early Chola during the Sangam period. He was the son of Ilamcetcenni and ruled around 270 BC....
across the Kaveri River
Kaveri River
The Kaveri , also spelled Cauvery in English, is a large Indian river. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the...
, about 24 kilometres (14.9 mi) from Uraiyur.
The medieval history of Tiruchirappalli begins with the reign of the Pallava king Mahendravarman I
Mahendravarman I
Mahendravarman I was a Pallava king who ruled the Northern regions of what forms present-day Tamil Nadu in India in the early 7th century. He was the son of Simhavishnu, who defeated the Kalabhras and re-established the Pallava kingdom....
who ruled over South India in the 6th century AD. Mahendravarman constructed the cave-temples within the Rockfort. Following the demise of the Pallavas in the 8th century AD, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas rose to prominence during the middle of the 9th century C.E. and established the greatest empire South India had seen. They successfully united the South India under their rule and through their naval strength extended their influence in the Southeast Asian countries such as Srivijaya...
who ruled till the 13th century AD.
When the Chola Empire began to decline, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Pandyas who ruled from 1216 to 1311 when they were defeated by Malik Kafur
Malik Kafur
Malik Kafur, General , or Chand Ram as his name was originally, was a slave who became a head general in the army of Alauddin Khilji, ruler of the Delhi sultanate from 1296 to 1316 AD. He was originally seized by Alauddin's army after the army conquered the city of Khambhat...
. The victorious armies of the Delhi Sultanate
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
are believed to have plundered and ravaged the kingdom. According to a local legend, the idol of the Hindu god Ranganatha
Ranganatha
Ranganātha , also known as Sri Ranganatha, Ranganathar, or Ranga, is a Hindu deity, more well known in South India. The deity is a resting form of Lord Vishnu, one of the foremost of Hindu Gods. His consort is Goddess Lakshmi, also known as Ranganayaki, Thayar...
in the temple of Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
was saved from destruction by burying it under a bilva tree. Tiruchirappalli was ruled by the Delhi and Madurai
Madurai Sultanate
The Madurai Sultanate or the Ma'bar Sultanate was a short lived independent Muslim kingdom based in the city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India during the 14th century CE. It lasted from 1335 until 1378...
sultanates from 1311 to 1378 when it was annexed by the Vijayanagar Empire. Tiruchirappalli remained a part of the Vijayanagar Empire and its successor, the Madurai Nayak kingdom till 1736. It served as the capital of the Madurai Nayak kingdom from 1616 to 1634 and from 1665 to 1736. In 1736, the last Madurai Nayak ruler Meenakshi
Meenakshi (Nayak queen)
Meenakshi was the last ruler in the Madurai Nayaks line. She was the granddaughter-in-law of Rani Mangammal.Vijaya Ranga Chokkanatha died in 1731, and was succeeded by his widow Meenakshi, who acted as Queen-Regent on behalf of a young boy she had adopted as the heir of her dead husband...
committed suicide and Tiruchirappalli was conquered by Chanda Sahib
Chanda Sahib
Chanda Sahib was the Nawab of the Carnatic between 1749 and 1752. His birth name is Husayn Dost Khan. He was the son-in-law of the Nawab of Carnatic Dost Ali Khan, under whom he worked as a Dewan. He belonged the Muslim Nait community which had ruled the Carnatic under the Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan...
who ruled the kingdom from 1736 to 1741 when he was captured and imprisoned by the Marathas. Tiruchirappalli was administered by the Maratha general Murari Rao
Murari Rao
Murari Rao Ghorpade, known simply as Murari Rao, was a soldier and army general in the Maratha Army who administered the fort of Tiruchirappalli and surrounding areas from 1741 to 1743. His administration marks the only period of Maratha occupation in Tiruchirappalli...
from 1741 to 1743, when it was annexed to the Carnatic kingdom. When the Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawabs of the Carnatic , ruled the Carnatic region of South India between about 1690 and 1801. They initially had their capital at Arcot,vellore city...
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was the Nawab of Arcot in India and an ally of the British East India Company. Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was born to Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan, by his second wife, Fakhr un-nisa Begum Sahiba, was a niece of Sayyid Ali Khan Safavi ul-Mosawi of Persia, sometime Naib suba...
was dethroned by Chanda Sahib in the year 1751, he fled to Tiruchirappalli and set up his base there. The subsequent siege of Tiruchirappalli by Chanda Sahib led to the Second Carnatic War.
At the end of the Second Carnatic War, the kingdom was eventually restored to Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah who was later forced to cede Tiruchirappalli to the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
for non-payment of dues. The district of Trichinopoly
Trichinopoly District (Madras Presidency)
The Trichinopoly district was a district of the erstwhile Madras Presidency of British India. It covered the present-day districts of Tiruchirappalli, Karur, Ariyalur and Perambalur in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The administrative headquarters was the town of Trichinopoly, Trichy or Tiruchi,...
was constituted in 1801 with the city of Trichinopoly or Tiruchirappalli as its capital and John Wallace as its first District Collector.
During the Company Raj and later, the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
, Tiruchirappalli emerged as one of the most important cities in India. It was popular throughout the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
for its unique variety of cheroot
Cheroot
The cheroot or stogie is a cylindrical cigar with both ends clipped during manufacture. Since cheroots do not taper, they are inexpensive to roll mechanically, and their low cost makes them particularly popular. Typically, stogies have a length of 3.5 to 6.5 inches, and a ring gauge of 34 to...
known as the Trichinopoly cigar
Trichinopoly cigar
Trichinopoly cigar, also called Trichies or Tritchies, is a type of cheroot associated with the town of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Trichinopoly cigar was actually manufactured from tobacco grown near the town of Dindigul near the present-day Tiruchirappalli and formed one of India's...
. According to the 1871 Indian census, the first in British India, Tiruchirappalli had a population of 76,530 making it the second largest city in Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
, next only to the capital city of Madras.
In the early 20th century, Tiruchirappalli grew further achieving a decadal population growth rate of 36.9 percent during the period 1941-51. However, following India's independence, Tiruchirappalli has fallen behind other cities as Salem and Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
in terms of growth. As of 2001, Tiruchirappalli was the fourth largest city in Tamil Nadu after Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai.
Geography and climate
Tiruchirappalli is located at 10.8050°N 78.6856°E. The average elevation is 88 metres (288.7 ft). It is located almost at the geographic centre of the state of Tamil NaduTamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The topology of Tiruchirappalli is almost flat with a few isolated hillocks rising above the surface, the highest of which is the Rockfort. The city spread over an area of 146.7 square kilometres (56.6 sq mi) is situated on the plains between the Shevaroy Hills
Shevaroy Hills
Shevaroys is the anglicised name for the Servarayan which lie near the town of Salem in Tamil Nadu, India. It is a detached hill range, covering an area of 50 sq. m., with plateaus from 4000 to 5000 ft. above sea-level. They include the sanatorium and several old coffee plantations...
to the north and the Palni Hills
Palni Hills
The Palni Hills are a mountain range in Tamil Nadu state of South India. The Palni Hills are an eastward extension of the Western Ghats ranges, which run parallel to the west coast of India. The Palni Hills adjoin the high Anamalai range on the west, and extend east into the plains of Tamil Nadu,...
to the south and south-west. The city is situated at the head of the Cauvery Delta which commences 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of Tiruchirappalli where the Cauvery River branches into two streams forming the island of Srirangam
Srirangam Island
Srirangam Island is a river island situated within the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It is formed by the river Cauvery and the Kollidam, a tributary of the Cauvery. The island is in length and one and wide. It is bounded by the Upper Anaicut to the west and the Grand Anaicut to the...
.
The land immediately surrounding the Kaveri is made up of fertile alluvial soil deposited by the Kaveri and its tributary, the Kollidam. Further south, the surface is covered by poor-quality black soil. The alluvial soil is conducible for agriculture and crops such as ragi (finger millet
Finger millet
Eleusine coracana, commonly Finger millet , also known as African millet or Ragi is an annual plant widely grown as a cereal in the arid areas of Africa and Asia. E...
) and cholam (maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
) are grown. North-east of Tiruchirappalli runs a belt of cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
rock known as the "Trichinopoly Group
Trichinopoly Group
The Trichinopoly Group is a geological formation in India whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. It lies between the Ootatoor and Ariyalur groups. It is broad in its southern extremity but thins as it gradually proceeds northwards as it ultimately meets the Ariyalur group...
". Layers of archaean rocks, granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and gneiss
Gneiss
Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...
covered by a thin bed of conglomeratic
Conglomerate (geology)
A conglomerate is a rock consisting of individual clasts within a finer-grained matrix that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts...
laterite
Laterite
Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock...
are found to the south-east of the city. The flora of Tiruchirappalli city and its surrounding areas is similar to that of the Cauvery delta. Cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
are found in large numbers in the region.
The city is divided into three parts: The Cantonment
Tiruchirappalli Cantonment
The Tiruchirappalli Cantonment is a residential neighbourhood in the city of Tiruchirappalli. It originated as a cantonment of the Madras Regiment in the 18th century. Most of the hotels and restaurants and the main tourist office and post office of Tiruchirappalli are located here...
area to the south, the temples to the north and the bazaar in the center of the city. Most of Tiruchirappalli's hotels and government and post offices are situated in the cantonment while most of Tiruchirappalli's temples are located in the north. The Rockfort and its temple are situated in the center of the city and surrounded by a bazaar
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...
. Densely-populated industrial and residential areas have recently emerged in the northern part of the city. Residential areas also cover the southern edge of the city. The city is completely surrounded by agricultural fields.
During the summer months of March to May, Tiruchirappalli is extremely hot and dry during daytime. However, the evenings are rendered cool by cold winds that blow from the south-east. It is quite sultry during September and October but cool and pleasant from November to February. According to a popular saying, the climate of Tiruchirappalli is "eight months hot and four hotter."
The city gets its drinking water supply from five headworks on the Cauvery River and 1,470 bore wells linked to 60 service reservoirs in and around the city.
The city is at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south-west of Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanniyakumari on the National Highway NH 45 and 205 kilometres (127.4 mi) south-east of Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
and 128 kilometres (79.5 mi) west from the Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...
coast, The city of Madurai is situated 161 kilometres (100 mi) south of Tiruchirappalli.
Demographics
According to the 2001 census, the Tiruchirappalli had a population of 752,066 with in the corporation limits at a density of 5,127 persons per km2, with 376,125 men (50.01 percent) and 375,941 women(49.99 percent). The urban agglomeration had a population of 866,354. Tiruchirappalli metropolitan area constitutes the fourth largest metropolitan area in Tamil Nadu and the 47th in India. 11.41 percent of the population was under six years of age. Tiruchirappalli had a literacy rate of 88.71 percent. The provisional results of the 2011 India census released by the Government of India give the population of Tiruchirappalli metropolitan area as 846,915 and the urban agglomeration as 1,021,717. There are a total of 286 slums in Tiruchirappalli with a population of about 162,000.The population is predominantly Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
, and there are sizable numbers of Christians and Muslims. Sikhs and Jains
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
are also present in smaller numbers. The most widely spoken language is Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, though there are also significantly large numbers of people speaking Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
, Saurashtrian
Saurashtra language
Sourashtra or "Sourashtras" or ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬꢵ refers to a community of people who had their original homes in Gujarat and presently settled almost in all major Towns of Tamil Nadu and are concentrated more in Madurai which is considered as their cultural Headquarters.They have also settled in...
and Kannada
Kannada language
Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
The standard dialect of Tamil spoken is the Central Tamil dialect
Central Tamil dialect
The Central Tamil dialect is a dialect of Tamil spoken in the districts of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Tiruchirapalli in central Tamil Nadu, India and to some extent, in the neighbouring Cuddalore and Pudukkottai districts.Along with Madurai Tamil, the Central Tamil dialect is considered...
. Saurashtrian is the mother tongue of the Patnūlkarar
Patnulkarar
Patnūlkaras are a Hindu community of weavers from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. They are generally of Gujarati origin.- History :The word Patnūlkaran means "silk-thread people". These people are first mentioned as Pattavayaka, the Sanskrit equivalent of Patnulkaran in the Mandasor inscriptions of...
s who migrated from Gujarat in the 16th century AD. There is also a substantial population of Sri Lankan Tamil migrants, most of whom are housed in refugee camps on the outskirts of the city. There are also sizeable populations of Gujaratis and Marwaris
Marwaris
Marwari or Marwadi or Rajasthani people are Indian ethnic group, that inhabit the Rajasthan region of India. Their language Rajasthani is a part of the western group of Indo-Aryan languages....
resident in the city. Most Muslims in the city are Labbays. Roman Catholics in Tiruchirappalli are affiliated to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiruchirapalli while Protestants are affiliated to the Trichy-Tanjore Diocese
Trichy-Tanjore Diocese
-The Church of South India - Tiruchirappalli Thanjavur Diocese:The CSI Tiruchirappalli Thanjavur Diocese was one of the first 14 Dioceses to be formed at the inaugural of the Church of South India in 1947. This is headed by the Church of South India Synod...
of the Church of South India
Church of South India
The Church of South India is the successor of the Church of England in India. It came into being in 1947 as a union of Anglican and Protestant churches in South India. With a membership of over 3.8 million, it is India's second largest Christian church after the Roman Catholic Church in India...
.
As a separate division of the Southern Railway
Southern Railway
The following railways or railroads are or were called the Southern Railway or Southern Railroad:- Europe :*Austrian Southern Railway, a railway company operating in Austria-Hungary between 1841 and 1923*South railway...
is headquartered at Tiruchirappalli city, there is a considerably strong Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
population in the city.
Culture and society
A resident of Tiruchirappalli is generally referred to as a Tiruchiite. The city formed a part of the traditional Chola heartland and has a number of exquisitely-sculpted temples and forts. Situated at the edge of the Cauvery Delta, the culture of Tiruchirappalli is similar to the Brahminical cultureBrahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
prevalent elsewhere in the delta. Most internationally known Christian denominations have a presence in the city thereby giving it the name "Rome of the East". With a substantial population of students and migrant industrial workers from different parts of India, Tiruchirappalli has a more cosmopolitan outlook than the surrounding countryside. Tiruchirappalli is home to many Carnatic musicians and film artistes.
Mohini Alangaram, Garuda Sevai, Vaikunta Ekadasi, Srirangam car festival, Teppakulam float festival
Theppotsavam
Theppotsavam, or float festival, is a Hindu religious festival carried out in Hindu temples in parts of South India, mainly Tamil Nadu during the month of Chitthirai or Chaitra...
and the Samayapuram Mariamman flower festival
Poochoriyal
The flower festival or flower sprinkling festival is an important festival ceberated in the Samayapuram Mariamman temple near Tiruchirappalli. This festival is usually held in the Tamil month of Masi. During this festival, devotees throng the temple to sprinkle flowers on the idol of the Hindu...
are some of the important festivals celebrated in Tiruchirappalli. Festivals like New Year and Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and other Indian festivals like Deepavali and Holi
Holi
Holi , is a religious spring festival celebrated by Hindus. Holi is also known as festival of Colours. It is primarily observed in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and countries with large Indic diaspora populations following Hinduism, such as Suriname, Malaysia, Guyana, South Africa, Trinidad, United...
are also celebrated with pomp and splendour. There are shopping outlets of handicraft chains Khadi Kraft and Poompuhar and bookshop Higginbotham's
Higginbotham's
The Higginbotham's is an Indian company of book sellers and publishers based in the city of Chennai. The main bookstore at Mount Road, Chennai has the reputation of being India's oldest bookshop in existence.- History :...
, Trichinopoly cigars, handicrafts. Cheap jewellery made from artificial diamonds are available in the bazaar situated to the immediate north of the Tiruchirappalli railway junction. Boxes of scotch whisky
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky is whisky made in Scotland.Scotch whisky is divided into five distinct categories: Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Single Grain Scotch Whisky, Blended Malt Scotch Whisky , Blended Grain Scotch Whisky, and Blended Scotch Whisky.All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three...
and photographic film
Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...
smuggled from Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
are also available. The Trichy Travel Federation (TTF) was formed on May 5, 2009 to promote Tiruchirappalli as a favourable tourist destination.
Economy
The economy of Tiruchirappalli is mainly industrial. During British rule, the city was known for its tanneries, cigar-manufacturing units and oil presses. At its peak, over 12 million cigars were manufactured and exported annually. Tanned hides and skins from Tiruchirappalli were exported to the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
The city has a number of retail and wholesale markets, the chief among them being the Gandhi market
Mahatma Gandhi Market
The Mahatma Gandhi Market is a wholesale fruit and vegetable market in the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. Its construction was begun as the Fort Market in 1867 and completed in 1868. The market was expanded in 1927, when P. Rathinavelu Thevar was the mayor of Tiruchirappalli and...
which is an important source of vegetables for the whole region. Other notable markets in the city are the flower bazaar in Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
and the mango
Mango
The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to India from where it spread all over the world. It is also the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. While...
market at Mambazha Salai
Mambazha Salai
Mambazha Salai , meaning Mango Street in Tamil, is a commercial neighbourhood of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It houses one of the city's principal mango markets....
.
Tiruchirappalli is a major engineering equipment manufacturing hub in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops is a firm in India that manufactures railway locomotives and other kinds of rolling stock. It is under Southern Railways of Indian Railway Board. The factory is based in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu...
, moved to Tiruchirappalli from Nagapattinam
Nagapattinam
Nagapattinam is a town in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Nagapattinam District. It is a prominent seaport on the east coast of India and an important centre of trade and commerce.The town of Nagapattinam dates back to the Sangam period...
in 1928, is one of the three railway locomotive manufacturing units in Tamil Nadu. The workshops produced 650 conventional and low-container flat wagons during the year 2007-08. The chief workshop manager's office at Golden Rock was awarded a star rating by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency for the proper and regulated usage of electricity in its offices.
A High Pressure Boiler manufacturing plant was set up by the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India's largest public sector engineering company, in May 1965. This was followed by a Seamless Steel Plant set up at a cost of 58 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$13 million) and a Boiler Auxiliaries Plant. The three manufacturing units constitute the BHEL industrial complex and cover a total area of about 22927.4 square metre. The plant can generate up to 6.2 MW of electricity using coal as a resource. Other important industries in Tiruchirappalli include the Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited (TDCL) which was established at Senthaneerpuram
Senthaneerpuram
Senthaneerpuram is an industrial suburb of the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited was established here in 1966. Currently, the suburb forms a part of the Golden Rock zone of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation....
in the then Golden Rock municipality
Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli
Golden Rock is a zone of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. The factories of the Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops and the residential quarters of its employees are located here.- See Also :* Battle of Golden Rock...
in the year 1966. and the Trichy Steel Rolling Mills which was started as a private limited company on June 27, 1961. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited manufactures rectified spirit
Rectified spirit
A rectified spirit, rectified alcohol, or neutral spirit is highly concentrated ethanol which has been purified by means of repeated distillation, a process that is called rectification. It typically contains 95% alcohol by volume...
, acetaldehyde
Acetaldehyde
Acetaldehyde is an organic chemical compound with the formula CH3CHO or MeCHO. It is one of the most important aldehydes, occurring widely in nature and being produced on a large scale industrially. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in coffee, bread, and ripe fruit, and is produced by plants as part...
, acetic acid
Acetic acid
Acetic acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH3CO2H . It is a colourless liquid that when undiluted is also called glacial acetic acid. Acetic acid is the main component of vinegar , and has a distinctive sour taste and pungent smell...
, acetic anhydride
Acetic anhydride
Acetic anhydride, or ethanoic anhydride, is the chemical compound with the formula 2O. Commonly abbreviated Ac2O, it is the simplest isolatable acid anhydride and is a widely used reagent in organic synthesis...
and ethyl acetate
Ethyl acetate
Ethyl acetate is the organic compound with the formula CH3COOCH2CH3. This colorless liquid has a characteristic sweet smell and is used in glues, nail polish removers, and cigarettes...
. It is one of the biggest private sector distilleries in Tamil Nadu and produced 13.5 million litres of spirit alcohol
Distilled beverage
A distilled beverage, liquor, or spirit is an alcoholic beverage containing ethanol that is produced by distilling ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit, or vegetables...
between December 2005 and November 2006. A weapon manufacturing unit and a Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
The Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project or HAPP in short is a first class defence establishment operated by the Indian Ordnance Factories Services , under the aegis of the Ordnance Factories Board, headquartered at Kolkata , under the overall charge of Ministry of Defence, Government of India.This is...
(HAPP) facility are run by the Ordnance Factory Board of the Government of India. The HAPP unit, set up in the late 1980s, comprises a Flexible manufacturing system
Flexible manufacturing system
A flexible manufacturing system is a manufacturing system in which there is some amount of flexibility that allows the system to react in the case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted...
(FMS), the first of its kind in India.
EID Parry
EID Parry
EID Parry Limited is a public company, headquartered in Chennai, South India, which has been in business for more than 200 years. It has many firsts to its credit, including manufacturing of fertilizers for the first time in the Indian subcontinent...
's sugar factory at Pettavaithalai
Pettavaithalai
Pettavaithalai is a town between Kulithalai and Tiruchirappalli. The distance from Pettavaithalai to Trichy is 24 km and Pettavaithalai to Kulithalai is 8 km. The Pettavaithalai town is an important place of pilgrimage. The important temples are Karumbai Amman Temple and...
and Dalmia Group cement factory at Dalmiapuram
Dalmiapuram
Dalmiapuram or Kallakudi is a small township in the Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu in India. It is located at a distance of 40 km from Tiruchirapalli Junction.Dalmiapuram is the hometown of the renowned Dalmia Cements....
are some major manufacturing units located on the outskirts of Tiruchirappalli.
The annual software exports of the Tiruchi region amount to 26.21 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$5.8 million). The ELCOT IT Park, the first IT park in the city has been commissioned at a cost of 60 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$13.5 million) and inaugurated by the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. K. Stalin on December 9, 2010. Set up by the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, the park occupies an area of 59.74 hectares (147.6 acre) and constitutes a Special Economic Zone
Special Economic Zone
A Special Economic Zone is a geographical region that has economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical or national laws...
. The Indian software company Infosys
Infosys
Infosys Limited, formerly Infosys Technologies Limited is a global technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is the second largest IT exporter in India with 133,560 employees as of March 2011. It has offices in 33 countries and development centers in India, China,...
, is planning to start its operations in Tiruchirappalli.
Transport
Tiruchirappalli is well connected by road, rail and air with most cities and towns in India. The National Highways NH 45, NH 45B, NH 67, NH 210 and NH 227 pass through the city. Tiruchirappalli forms a part of the Division no. 1 of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation which is headquartered at KumbakonamKumbakonam
Kumbakonam , also spelt as Coombaconum in the records of British India , is a town and a special grade municipality in the Thanjavur district in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located 40 kilometres from Thanjavur and 272 kilometres from Chennai, it is the headquarters of the Kumbakonam...
. There are regular buses to Thanjavur, Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai is a town and a municipality in Pudukkottai district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Pudukkottai District was carved out of Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur districts in January 1974.It is the administrative headquarters of Pudukkottai District....
, Kanniyakumari, Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, Madurai
Madurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
, Palani
Palani
Palani is a city and a municipality in the Dindigul district of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located about 100 km South of Coimbatore City and 60 km west of Dindigul...
, Pondicherry, Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
, Kodaikanal
Kodaikanal
-Climate:Kodaikanal has a monsoon-influenced subtropical highland climate . The temperatures are cool throughout the year due to the high elevation of the city.-Economy:...
and Tirupathi. Buses are also available to destinations in Karnataka
Karnataka
Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
and Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
. The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation or KSRTC is the state owned road transportation company in Karnataka.-About:KSRTC was set up in the year 1961 under the provisions of Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. It is wholly owned by the Government of Karnataka. The Government of India is also...
(KSRTC) operates special bus services between Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
and Tiruchirapalli during weekends. There are two major bus termini: the Chathram Bus Stand and the Central Bus Station, both situated close to each other. The bus termini are situated at a distance of 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi) from the main railway station. The city has an efficient local bus transportation system - both government-operated as well as private.
The Great Southern of India Railway Company was established in 1853 with its headquarters at Tiruchirappalli. In 1859, the company constructed its first railway line connecting Tiruchirappalli and Nagapattinam. Currently, Tiruchirappalli is an important railway junction in central Tamil Nadu and constitutes a separate division of the Southern Railway
Southern Railway (India)
The Southern Railway is the earliest of the 16 zones of the Indian Railways created in independent India. It was created on April 14, 1951 by merging three state railways namely Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway, and the Mysore State Railway. The South Indian Railway...
. There are frequent trains to Chennai, Madurai, Chidambaram
Chidambaram
Chidambaram is a fast growing industrial city in Eastern part of Tamil Nadu and the taluk headquarters of the Cuddalore district. It is located in 58 km from Pondicherry, 60 km from Karaikal, and 240 km south of Chennai by rail...
, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, Rameswaram, Mangalore
Mangalore
Mangalore is the chief port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located about west of the state capital, Bangalore. Mangalore lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghat mountain ranges, and is the administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district in south western...
, Tirupathi, Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, Guwahati
Guwahati
Guwahati, Pragjyotishpura in ancient Assam formerly known as Gauhati is a metropolis,the largest city of Assam in India and ancient urban area in North East India, with a population of 963,429. It is also the largest metropolitan area in north-eastern India...
and Cochin. There are nine daily express trains operating on the Chennai-Tiruchirappalli line, important among which are Vaigai Express
Vaigai express
The Vaigai Express is a super fast day express train running between Chennai and Madurai. It is one of the more prestigious trains of the Southern Railway zone of the Indian railways....
, Pallavan Express
Pallavan Express
The Pallavan Express is a superfast train operated by the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. This train connects the cities of Tiruchirapalli and Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the more prestigious trains of the Southern Railway.-General information:The train...
and the Rockfort Express
Rockfort Express
The Rockfort Express is the most popular night express train that connects Trichy and Chennai Egmore in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and extends till Kumbakonam. The train numbered 16178 departs from Kumbakonam at 19:55 Hours and reaches Trichy at 21:55 Hours as a link Express...
. The Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express
Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express
The Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express is a Superfast train operated by the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. This train connects the town of Mayiladuthurai with Mysore...
plies between Tiruchirappalli and Mysore on a daily basis, stopping at Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
on the way. Tiruchirappalli has rail connectivity with most important cities and towns in India.
The Tiruchirapalli International Airport is the second biggest airport in Tamil Nadu in terms of passenger traffic, cargo traffic as well as aircraft movement. It was first used to handle air traffic in 1938 when Tata Airlines
Tata Airlines
Tata Airlines, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. was founded by J. R. D. Tata in 1932 as Tata Sons.It was started as a mail service between Karachi, Bombay and Madras.-The beginning:...
commercial flights stopped at Tiruchirappalli on the Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
-Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
route. In 1948, Air Ceylon
Air Ceylon
Air Ceylon was the flag carrier airline of Sri Lanka from 1947 until 1978, when it was replaced by Air Lanka.- History :...
commenced daily passenger flights between Tiruchirappalli and Colombo via Jaffna. There are regular flights to Chennai, Kochi
Kochi
-Places:* Kochi, a city in the state of Kerala, India, formerly known as Cochin* Kingdom of Cochin, a former feudal city-state on Malabar Coast, India** Fort Kochi, one of the three main urban components which constitute the present day city of Kochi, Kerala, India...
, Kozhikode
Kozhikode
Kozhikode During Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, Kozhikkode was dubbed the "City of Spices" for its role as the major trading point of eastern spices. Kozhikode was once the capital of an independent kingdom of the same name and later of the erstwhile Malabar District...
, Sri Lanka,Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
, Sharjah and Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
.
Administration and politics
{|cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="1" style="float:right; border-collapse:collapse; border:2px white solid; font-size:x-small; font-family:verdana;"|-
|style="background:#659ec7; color:black;"|
Corporation officials
|-
|Mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
|
A. Jaya
|-
|Deputy Mayor
Deputy Mayor
Deputy mayor is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official in many local governments. Many elected deputy mayors are members of the city council who are given the title and serve as acting mayor in the mayor's absence...
|
M. Ashik Meera
|-
|Corporation Commissioner
|
K. Veera Raghava Rao
|-
|Commissioner of Police
|
Tiruchirappalli ( (tiruccirāppaḷḷi) ) (spelt as Trichinopoly in the records of British India), also called Tiruchi or Trichy , is a city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
in the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n state
States and territories of India
India is a federal union of states comprising twenty-eight states and seven union territories. The states and territories are further subdivided into districts and so on.-List of states and territories:...
of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli District
Tiruchirappalli district
Tiruchirapalli District , also known as Tiruchchirapalli District or Trichy District, is located along the Kaveri River in Tamil Nadu, India...
. It is the fourth largest municipal corporation
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
in Tamil Nadu and also the fourth largest urban agglomeration in the state. Situated at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south of Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanyakumari
Kanyakumari
Kanyakumari is a town in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. It is also sometimes referred to as Cape Comorin. Located at the southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula, it is the geographical end of the Indian mainland. The district in Tamil Nadu where the town is located is called Kanyakumari...
on the National Highway NH 45, it is located almost at the geographic centre of the state.
Tiruchirappalli is believed to have been named after the three-headed demon Trishira
Trishira
Trishira or Trisiras ไทย : ตรีเศียร, that is, one having three heads, was an asura , and reference to him is found in the Ramayana. He was one of the seven sons of Ravana, and his other brothers were Indrajit, Prahasta, Atikaya, Akshayakumara, Devantaka and Narantaka.He engaged Rama in a fight and...
of Hindu mythology who is believed to have indulged in penance and obtained favours at this place. The city is believed to be of significant antiquity and has been ruled by the Early Cholas
Early Cholas
The Early Cholas of the pre and post Sangam period were one of the three main kingdoms of the ancient Tamil country. Their early capitals were Urayur and Kaveripattinam...
, Early Pandyas, Pallavas, Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas rose to prominence during the middle of the 9th century C.E. and established the greatest empire South India had seen. They successfully united the South India under their rule and through their naval strength extended their influence in the Southeast Asian countries such as Srivijaya...
, Later Cholas, Later Pandyas, Delhi Sultanate
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
, Ma'bar Sultanate, Vijayanagar Empire, Nayak Dynasty
Nayak dynasty
Nayak dynasties emerged after the downfall of Vijayanagara Empire. The Nayaks were originally military governors under the supervision of the Vijayanagara Empire. After the battle of Talikota, several of them declared independence...
, the Carnatic state
Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawabs of the Carnatic , ruled the Carnatic region of South India between about 1690 and 1801. They initially had their capital at Arcot,vellore city...
and the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
at different times. The archaeologically important town of Uraiyur which served as the capital of the Early Cholas is a suburb of Tiruchirappalli. Tiruchirappalli has a number of historical monuments, the Rockfort, Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam and the Jambukeswarar temple at Thiruvanaikaval being the most prominent among them.
Tiruchirappalli is an important industrial and educational hub of central Tamil Nadu. The factories of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
The Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project or HAPP in short is a first class defence establishment operated by the Indian Ordnance Factories Services , under the aegis of the Ordnance Factories Board, headquartered at Kolkata , under the overall charge of Ministry of Defence, Government of India.This is...
and Golden Rock Railway Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops is a firm in India that manufactures railway locomotives and other kinds of rolling stock. It is under Southern Railways of Indian Railway Board. The factory is based in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu...
are located in Tiruchirappalli. The National Institutes of Technology
National Institutes of Technology
The National Institutes of Technology , are a group of higher education engineering institutes in India. Comprising thirty autonomous institutes, they are located in one each major state/territory of India. On their inception decades ago, all NITs were referred as Regional Engineering Colleges ...
(NIT), Indian Institute of Management, Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University is a university in the city of Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu state, India. It has affiliated colleges in districts of the state, including Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Tiruchirapalli. It is a recognised university, supported by the...
and Anna University of Technology have their campuses in the city.
Etymology
The name Tiruchirappalli is believed by some to have been derived from the Sanskrit "Trishirapuram" - 'Trishira' meaning "three-headed" and 'palli' or 'puram' meaning "City". According to Hindu mythologyHindu mythology
Hindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
, the town got its name from the three-headed demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
Trishira
Trishira
Trishira or Trisiras ไทย : ตรีเศียร, that is, one having three heads, was an asura , and reference to him is found in the Ramayana. He was one of the seven sons of Ravana, and his other brothers were Indrajit, Prahasta, Atikaya, Akshayakumara, Devantaka and Narantaka.He engaged Rama in a fight and...
who meditated on the Hindu god Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
near the present-day Tiruchirappalli and obtained favours at this place. However, this derivation is not universally accepted.
Other derivations of Tiruchirappalli have been provided by the Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
scholar C. P. Brown who suggested that Tiruchirappalli might be a derivative of the word 'Chiruta-palli' meaning "little town". In an inscription of the sixteenth century, Tiruchirappalli is mentioned as Tiru-ssila-palli meaning "holy-rock-town" in Tamil and Henry Yule
Henry Yule
Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...
and Arthur Coke Burnell
Arthur Coke Burnell
Arthur Coke Burnell , English scholar in Sanskrit, was born at St. Briavels, Gloucestershire.He was sent to King's College, London, where he met Professor V. Fausböll of Copenhagen, who seems to have turned towards Indian studies a mind that had already shown a keen interest in languages and...
believed that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from it. A few other scholars feel that the name Tiruchirappalli might have been derived from Tiru-chinna-palli meaning "holy little town". The Madras Glossary gives the root as Tiruććināppalli or the "holy (tiru) village (palli) of the shina (Cissampelos pareira
Cissampelos pareira
Cissampelos pareira is a species of flowering plant in the family Menispermaceae.-Medicinal uses:Cissampelos pareira is used in Chinese herbology, where it is called xí shēng téng or . The species is also known as abuta and is also called laghu patha in Ayurvedic medicine...
) plant".
During British rule, Tiruchirappalli was commonly referred to using the erroneous spelling "Trichinopoly". The shortened forms "Trichy" or "Tiruchi" are more frequently used in common parlance.
History
Tiruchirappalli is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Tamil NaduTamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
, its earliest settlements dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. Sir William Larke, Director of the British Iron and Steel Federation, stated:
Uraiyur, which served as the capital of the Early Cholas from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD is identified by some with a suburb of present-day Tiruchirappalli. The city is mentioned as "Orthoura" by the historian, Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
. The world's oldest surviving dam, the Kallanai, was built by Karikala Chola
Karikala Chola
Karikala Chola or Karikala Chozhan was one of the great Tamil kings of Early Chola during the Sangam period. He was the son of Ilamcetcenni and ruled around 270 BC....
across the Kaveri River
Kaveri River
The Kaveri , also spelled Cauvery in English, is a large Indian river. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the...
, about 24 kilometres (14.9 mi) from Uraiyur.
The medieval history of Tiruchirappalli begins with the reign of the Pallava king Mahendravarman I
Mahendravarman I
Mahendravarman I was a Pallava king who ruled the Northern regions of what forms present-day Tamil Nadu in India in the early 7th century. He was the son of Simhavishnu, who defeated the Kalabhras and re-established the Pallava kingdom....
who ruled over South India in the 6th century AD. Mahendravarman constructed the cave-temples within the Rockfort. Following the demise of the Pallavas in the 8th century AD, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas
Medieval Cholas rose to prominence during the middle of the 9th century C.E. and established the greatest empire South India had seen. They successfully united the South India under their rule and through their naval strength extended their influence in the Southeast Asian countries such as Srivijaya...
who ruled till the 13th century AD.
When the Chola Empire began to decline, Tiruchirappalli was conquered by the Pandyas who ruled from 1216 to 1311 when they were defeated by Malik Kafur
Malik Kafur
Malik Kafur, General , or Chand Ram as his name was originally, was a slave who became a head general in the army of Alauddin Khilji, ruler of the Delhi sultanate from 1296 to 1316 AD. He was originally seized by Alauddin's army after the army conquered the city of Khambhat...
. The victorious armies of the Delhi Sultanate
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
are believed to have plundered and ravaged the kingdom. According to a local legend, the idol of the Hindu god Ranganatha
Ranganatha
Ranganātha , also known as Sri Ranganatha, Ranganathar, or Ranga, is a Hindu deity, more well known in South India. The deity is a resting form of Lord Vishnu, one of the foremost of Hindu Gods. His consort is Goddess Lakshmi, also known as Ranganayaki, Thayar...
in the temple of Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
was saved from destruction by burying it under a bilva tree. Tiruchirappalli was ruled by the Delhi and Madurai
Madurai Sultanate
The Madurai Sultanate or the Ma'bar Sultanate was a short lived independent Muslim kingdom based in the city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India during the 14th century CE. It lasted from 1335 until 1378...
sultanates from 1311 to 1378 when it was annexed by the Vijayanagar Empire. Tiruchirappalli remained a part of the Vijayanagar Empire and its successor, the Madurai Nayak kingdom till 1736. It served as the capital of the Madurai Nayak kingdom from 1616 to 1634 and from 1665 to 1736. In 1736, the last Madurai Nayak ruler Meenakshi
Meenakshi (Nayak queen)
Meenakshi was the last ruler in the Madurai Nayaks line. She was the granddaughter-in-law of Rani Mangammal.Vijaya Ranga Chokkanatha died in 1731, and was succeeded by his widow Meenakshi, who acted as Queen-Regent on behalf of a young boy she had adopted as the heir of her dead husband...
committed suicide and Tiruchirappalli was conquered by Chanda Sahib
Chanda Sahib
Chanda Sahib was the Nawab of the Carnatic between 1749 and 1752. His birth name is Husayn Dost Khan. He was the son-in-law of the Nawab of Carnatic Dost Ali Khan, under whom he worked as a Dewan. He belonged the Muslim Nait community which had ruled the Carnatic under the Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan...
who ruled the kingdom from 1736 to 1741 when he was captured and imprisoned by the Marathas. Tiruchirappalli was administered by the Maratha general Murari Rao
Murari Rao
Murari Rao Ghorpade, known simply as Murari Rao, was a soldier and army general in the Maratha Army who administered the fort of Tiruchirappalli and surrounding areas from 1741 to 1743. His administration marks the only period of Maratha occupation in Tiruchirappalli...
from 1741 to 1743, when it was annexed to the Carnatic kingdom. When the Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawab of the Carnatic
Nawabs of the Carnatic , ruled the Carnatic region of South India between about 1690 and 1801. They initially had their capital at Arcot,vellore city...
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah
Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was the Nawab of Arcot in India and an ally of the British East India Company. Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah was born to Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan, by his second wife, Fakhr un-nisa Begum Sahiba, was a niece of Sayyid Ali Khan Safavi ul-Mosawi of Persia, sometime Naib suba...
was dethroned by Chanda Sahib in the year 1751, he fled to Tiruchirappalli and set up his base there. The subsequent siege of Tiruchirappalli by Chanda Sahib led to the Second Carnatic War.
At the end of the Second Carnatic War, the kingdom was eventually restored to Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah who was later forced to cede Tiruchirappalli to the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
for non-payment of dues. The district of Trichinopoly
Trichinopoly District (Madras Presidency)
The Trichinopoly district was a district of the erstwhile Madras Presidency of British India. It covered the present-day districts of Tiruchirappalli, Karur, Ariyalur and Perambalur in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The administrative headquarters was the town of Trichinopoly, Trichy or Tiruchi,...
was constituted in 1801 with the city of Trichinopoly or Tiruchirappalli as its capital and John Wallace as its first District Collector.
During the Company Raj and later, the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
, Tiruchirappalli emerged as one of the most important cities in India. It was popular throughout the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
for its unique variety of cheroot
Cheroot
The cheroot or stogie is a cylindrical cigar with both ends clipped during manufacture. Since cheroots do not taper, they are inexpensive to roll mechanically, and their low cost makes them particularly popular. Typically, stogies have a length of 3.5 to 6.5 inches, and a ring gauge of 34 to...
known as the Trichinopoly cigar
Trichinopoly cigar
Trichinopoly cigar, also called Trichies or Tritchies, is a type of cheroot associated with the town of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Trichinopoly cigar was actually manufactured from tobacco grown near the town of Dindigul near the present-day Tiruchirappalli and formed one of India's...
. According to the 1871 Indian census, the first in British India, Tiruchirappalli had a population of 76,530 making it the second largest city in Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
, next only to the capital city of Madras.
In the early 20th century, Tiruchirappalli grew further achieving a decadal population growth rate of 36.9 percent during the period 1941-51. However, following India's independence, Tiruchirappalli has fallen behind other cities as Salem and Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
in terms of growth. As of 2001, Tiruchirappalli was the fourth largest city in Tamil Nadu after Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai.
Geography and climate
Tiruchirappalli is located at 10.8050°N 78.6856°E. The average elevation is 88 metres (288.7 ft). It is located almost at the geographic centre of the state of Tamil NaduTamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The topology of Tiruchirappalli is almost flat with a few isolated hillocks rising above the surface, the highest of which is the Rockfort. The city spread over an area of 146.7 square kilometres (56.6 sq mi) is situated on the plains between the Shevaroy Hills
Shevaroy Hills
Shevaroys is the anglicised name for the Servarayan which lie near the town of Salem in Tamil Nadu, India. It is a detached hill range, covering an area of 50 sq. m., with plateaus from 4000 to 5000 ft. above sea-level. They include the sanatorium and several old coffee plantations...
to the north and the Palni Hills
Palni Hills
The Palni Hills are a mountain range in Tamil Nadu state of South India. The Palni Hills are an eastward extension of the Western Ghats ranges, which run parallel to the west coast of India. The Palni Hills adjoin the high Anamalai range on the west, and extend east into the plains of Tamil Nadu,...
to the south and south-west. The city is situated at the head of the Cauvery Delta which commences 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of Tiruchirappalli where the Cauvery River branches into two streams forming the island of Srirangam
Srirangam Island
Srirangam Island is a river island situated within the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It is formed by the river Cauvery and the Kollidam, a tributary of the Cauvery. The island is in length and one and wide. It is bounded by the Upper Anaicut to the west and the Grand Anaicut to the...
.
The land immediately surrounding the Kaveri is made up of fertile alluvial soil deposited by the Kaveri and its tributary, the Kollidam. Further south, the surface is covered by poor-quality black soil. The alluvial soil is conducible for agriculture and crops such as ragi (finger millet
Finger millet
Eleusine coracana, commonly Finger millet , also known as African millet or Ragi is an annual plant widely grown as a cereal in the arid areas of Africa and Asia. E...
) and cholam (maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
) are grown. North-east of Tiruchirappalli runs a belt of cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
rock known as the "Trichinopoly Group
Trichinopoly Group
The Trichinopoly Group is a geological formation in India whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. It lies between the Ootatoor and Ariyalur groups. It is broad in its southern extremity but thins as it gradually proceeds northwards as it ultimately meets the Ariyalur group...
". Layers of archaean rocks, granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and gneiss
Gneiss
Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...
covered by a thin bed of conglomeratic
Conglomerate (geology)
A conglomerate is a rock consisting of individual clasts within a finer-grained matrix that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts...
laterite
Laterite
Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock...
are found to the south-east of the city. The flora of Tiruchirappalli city and its surrounding areas is similar to that of the Cauvery delta. Cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
are found in large numbers in the region.
The city is divided into three parts: The Cantonment
Tiruchirappalli Cantonment
The Tiruchirappalli Cantonment is a residential neighbourhood in the city of Tiruchirappalli. It originated as a cantonment of the Madras Regiment in the 18th century. Most of the hotels and restaurants and the main tourist office and post office of Tiruchirappalli are located here...
area to the south, the temples to the north and the bazaar in the center of the city. Most of Tiruchirappalli's hotels and government and post offices are situated in the cantonment while most of Tiruchirappalli's temples are located in the north. The Rockfort and its temple are situated in the center of the city and surrounded by a bazaar
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...
. Densely-populated industrial and residential areas have recently emerged in the northern part of the city. Residential areas also cover the southern edge of the city. The city is completely surrounded by agricultural fields.
During the summer months of March to May, Tiruchirappalli is extremely hot and dry during daytime. However, the evenings are rendered cool by cold winds that blow from the south-east. It is quite sultry during September and October but cool and pleasant from November to February. According to a popular saying, the climate of Tiruchirappalli is "eight months hot and four hotter."
The city gets its drinking water supply from five headworks on the Cauvery River and 1,470 bore wells linked to 60 service reservoirs in and around the city.
The city is at a distance of 325 kilometres (201.9 mi) south-west of Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and 402 kilometres (249.8 mi) north of Kanniyakumari on the National Highway NH 45 and 205 kilometres (127.4 mi) south-east of Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
and 128 kilometres (79.5 mi) west from the Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...
coast, The city of Madurai is situated 161 kilometres (100 mi) south of Tiruchirappalli.
Demographics
According to the 2001 census, the Tiruchirappalli had a population of 752,066 with in the corporation limits at a density of 5,127 persons per km2, with 376,125 men (50.01 percent) and 375,941 women(49.99 percent). The urban agglomeration had a population of 866,354. Tiruchirappalli metropolitan area constitutes the fourth largest metropolitan area in Tamil Nadu and the 47th in India. 11.41 percent of the population was under six years of age. Tiruchirappalli had a literacy rate of 88.71 percent. The provisional results of the 2011 India census released by the Government of India give the population of Tiruchirappalli metropolitan area as 846,915 and the urban agglomeration as 1,021,717. There are a total of 286 slums in Tiruchirappalli with a population of about 162,000.The population is predominantly Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
, and there are sizable numbers of Christians and Muslims. Sikhs and Jains
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
are also present in smaller numbers. The most widely spoken language is Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, though there are also significantly large numbers of people speaking Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
, Saurashtrian
Saurashtra language
Sourashtra or "Sourashtras" or ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬꢵ refers to a community of people who had their original homes in Gujarat and presently settled almost in all major Towns of Tamil Nadu and are concentrated more in Madurai which is considered as their cultural Headquarters.They have also settled in...
and Kannada
Kannada language
Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
The standard dialect of Tamil spoken is the Central Tamil dialect
Central Tamil dialect
The Central Tamil dialect is a dialect of Tamil spoken in the districts of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Tiruchirapalli in central Tamil Nadu, India and to some extent, in the neighbouring Cuddalore and Pudukkottai districts.Along with Madurai Tamil, the Central Tamil dialect is considered...
. Saurashtrian is the mother tongue of the Patnūlkarar
Patnulkarar
Patnūlkaras are a Hindu community of weavers from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. They are generally of Gujarati origin.- History :The word Patnūlkaran means "silk-thread people". These people are first mentioned as Pattavayaka, the Sanskrit equivalent of Patnulkaran in the Mandasor inscriptions of...
s who migrated from Gujarat in the 16th century AD. There is also a substantial population of Sri Lankan Tamil migrants, most of whom are housed in refugee camps on the outskirts of the city. There are also sizeable populations of Gujaratis and Marwaris
Marwaris
Marwari or Marwadi or Rajasthani people are Indian ethnic group, that inhabit the Rajasthan region of India. Their language Rajasthani is a part of the western group of Indo-Aryan languages....
resident in the city. Most Muslims in the city are Labbays. Roman Catholics in Tiruchirappalli are affiliated to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiruchirapalli while Protestants are affiliated to the Trichy-Tanjore Diocese
Trichy-Tanjore Diocese
-The Church of South India - Tiruchirappalli Thanjavur Diocese:The CSI Tiruchirappalli Thanjavur Diocese was one of the first 14 Dioceses to be formed at the inaugural of the Church of South India in 1947. This is headed by the Church of South India Synod...
of the Church of South India
Church of South India
The Church of South India is the successor of the Church of England in India. It came into being in 1947 as a union of Anglican and Protestant churches in South India. With a membership of over 3.8 million, it is India's second largest Christian church after the Roman Catholic Church in India...
.
As a separate division of the Southern Railway
Southern Railway
The following railways or railroads are or were called the Southern Railway or Southern Railroad:- Europe :*Austrian Southern Railway, a railway company operating in Austria-Hungary between 1841 and 1923*South railway...
is headquartered at Tiruchirappalli city, there is a considerably strong Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
population in the city.
Culture and society
A resident of Tiruchirappalli is generally referred to as a Tiruchiite. The city formed a part of the traditional Chola heartland and has a number of exquisitely-sculpted temples and forts. Situated at the edge of the Cauvery Delta, the culture of Tiruchirappalli is similar to the Brahminical cultureBrahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
prevalent elsewhere in the delta. Most internationally known Christian denominations have a presence in the city thereby giving it the name "Rome of the East". With a substantial population of students and migrant industrial workers from different parts of India, Tiruchirappalli has a more cosmopolitan outlook than the surrounding countryside. Tiruchirappalli is home to many Carnatic musicians and film artistes.
Mohini Alangaram, Garuda Sevai, Vaikunta Ekadasi, Srirangam car festival, Teppakulam float festival
Theppotsavam
Theppotsavam, or float festival, is a Hindu religious festival carried out in Hindu temples in parts of South India, mainly Tamil Nadu during the month of Chitthirai or Chaitra...
and the Samayapuram Mariamman flower festival
Poochoriyal
The flower festival or flower sprinkling festival is an important festival ceberated in the Samayapuram Mariamman temple near Tiruchirappalli. This festival is usually held in the Tamil month of Masi. During this festival, devotees throng the temple to sprinkle flowers on the idol of the Hindu...
are some of the important festivals celebrated in Tiruchirappalli. Festivals like New Year and Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and other Indian festivals like Deepavali and Holi
Holi
Holi , is a religious spring festival celebrated by Hindus. Holi is also known as festival of Colours. It is primarily observed in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and countries with large Indic diaspora populations following Hinduism, such as Suriname, Malaysia, Guyana, South Africa, Trinidad, United...
are also celebrated with pomp and splendour. There are shopping outlets of handicraft chains Khadi Kraft and Poompuhar and bookshop Higginbotham's
Higginbotham's
The Higginbotham's is an Indian company of book sellers and publishers based in the city of Chennai. The main bookstore at Mount Road, Chennai has the reputation of being India's oldest bookshop in existence.- History :...
, Trichinopoly cigars, handicrafts. Cheap jewellery made from artificial diamonds are available in the bazaar situated to the immediate north of the Tiruchirappalli railway junction. Boxes of scotch whisky
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky is whisky made in Scotland.Scotch whisky is divided into five distinct categories: Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Single Grain Scotch Whisky, Blended Malt Scotch Whisky , Blended Grain Scotch Whisky, and Blended Scotch Whisky.All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three...
and photographic film
Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...
smuggled from Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
are also available. The Trichy Travel Federation (TTF) was formed on May 5, 2009 to promote Tiruchirappalli as a favourable tourist destination.
Economy
The economy of Tiruchirappalli is mainly industrial. During British rule, the city was known for its tanneries, cigar-manufacturing units and oil presses. At its peak, over 12 million cigars were manufactured and exported annually. Tanned hides and skins from Tiruchirappalli were exported to the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
The city has a number of retail and wholesale markets, the chief among them being the Gandhi market
Mahatma Gandhi Market
The Mahatma Gandhi Market is a wholesale fruit and vegetable market in the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. Its construction was begun as the Fort Market in 1867 and completed in 1868. The market was expanded in 1927, when P. Rathinavelu Thevar was the mayor of Tiruchirappalli and...
which is an important source of vegetables for the whole region. Other notable markets in the city are the flower bazaar in Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
and the mango
Mango
The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to India from where it spread all over the world. It is also the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. While...
market at Mambazha Salai
Mambazha Salai
Mambazha Salai , meaning Mango Street in Tamil, is a commercial neighbourhood of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It houses one of the city's principal mango markets....
.
Tiruchirappalli is a major engineering equipment manufacturing hub in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. The Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops
Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops is a firm in India that manufactures railway locomotives and other kinds of rolling stock. It is under Southern Railways of Indian Railway Board. The factory is based in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu...
, moved to Tiruchirappalli from Nagapattinam
Nagapattinam
Nagapattinam is a town in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Nagapattinam District. It is a prominent seaport on the east coast of India and an important centre of trade and commerce.The town of Nagapattinam dates back to the Sangam period...
in 1928, is one of the three railway locomotive manufacturing units in Tamil Nadu. The workshops produced 650 conventional and low-container flat wagons during the year 2007-08. The chief workshop manager's office at Golden Rock was awarded a star rating by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency for the proper and regulated usage of electricity in its offices.
A High Pressure Boiler manufacturing plant was set up by the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India's largest public sector engineering company, in May 1965. This was followed by a Seamless Steel Plant set up at a cost of 58 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$13 million) and a Boiler Auxiliaries Plant. The three manufacturing units constitute the BHEL industrial complex and cover a total area of about 22927.4 square metre. The plant can generate up to 6.2 MW of electricity using coal as a resource. Other important industries in Tiruchirappalli include the Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited (TDCL) which was established at Senthaneerpuram
Senthaneerpuram
Senthaneerpuram is an industrial suburb of the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited was established here in 1966. Currently, the suburb forms a part of the Golden Rock zone of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation....
in the then Golden Rock municipality
Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli
Golden Rock is a zone of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. The factories of the Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops and the residential quarters of its employees are located here.- See Also :* Battle of Golden Rock...
in the year 1966. and the Trichy Steel Rolling Mills which was started as a private limited company on June 27, 1961. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited manufactures rectified spirit
Rectified spirit
A rectified spirit, rectified alcohol, or neutral spirit is highly concentrated ethanol which has been purified by means of repeated distillation, a process that is called rectification. It typically contains 95% alcohol by volume...
, acetaldehyde
Acetaldehyde
Acetaldehyde is an organic chemical compound with the formula CH3CHO or MeCHO. It is one of the most important aldehydes, occurring widely in nature and being produced on a large scale industrially. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in coffee, bread, and ripe fruit, and is produced by plants as part...
, acetic acid
Acetic acid
Acetic acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH3CO2H . It is a colourless liquid that when undiluted is also called glacial acetic acid. Acetic acid is the main component of vinegar , and has a distinctive sour taste and pungent smell...
, acetic anhydride
Acetic anhydride
Acetic anhydride, or ethanoic anhydride, is the chemical compound with the formula 2O. Commonly abbreviated Ac2O, it is the simplest isolatable acid anhydride and is a widely used reagent in organic synthesis...
and ethyl acetate
Ethyl acetate
Ethyl acetate is the organic compound with the formula CH3COOCH2CH3. This colorless liquid has a characteristic sweet smell and is used in glues, nail polish removers, and cigarettes...
. It is one of the biggest private sector distilleries in Tamil Nadu and produced 13.5 million litres of spirit alcohol
Distilled beverage
A distilled beverage, liquor, or spirit is an alcoholic beverage containing ethanol that is produced by distilling ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit, or vegetables...
between December 2005 and November 2006. A weapon manufacturing unit and a Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project
The Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project or HAPP in short is a first class defence establishment operated by the Indian Ordnance Factories Services , under the aegis of the Ordnance Factories Board, headquartered at Kolkata , under the overall charge of Ministry of Defence, Government of India.This is...
(HAPP) facility are run by the Ordnance Factory Board of the Government of India. The HAPP unit, set up in the late 1980s, comprises a Flexible manufacturing system
Flexible manufacturing system
A flexible manufacturing system is a manufacturing system in which there is some amount of flexibility that allows the system to react in the case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted...
(FMS), the first of its kind in India.
EID Parry
EID Parry
EID Parry Limited is a public company, headquartered in Chennai, South India, which has been in business for more than 200 years. It has many firsts to its credit, including manufacturing of fertilizers for the first time in the Indian subcontinent...
's sugar factory at Pettavaithalai
Pettavaithalai
Pettavaithalai is a town between Kulithalai and Tiruchirappalli. The distance from Pettavaithalai to Trichy is 24 km and Pettavaithalai to Kulithalai is 8 km. The Pettavaithalai town is an important place of pilgrimage. The important temples are Karumbai Amman Temple and...
and Dalmia Group cement factory at Dalmiapuram
Dalmiapuram
Dalmiapuram or Kallakudi is a small township in the Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu in India. It is located at a distance of 40 km from Tiruchirapalli Junction.Dalmiapuram is the hometown of the renowned Dalmia Cements....
are some major manufacturing units located on the outskirts of Tiruchirappalli.
The annual software exports of the Tiruchi region amount to 26.21 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$5.8 million). The ELCOT IT Park, the first IT park in the city has been commissioned at a cost of 60 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
(US$13.5 million) and inaugurated by the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. K. Stalin on December 9, 2010. Set up by the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, the park occupies an area of 59.74 hectares (147.6 acre) and constitutes a Special Economic Zone
Special Economic Zone
A Special Economic Zone is a geographical region that has economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical or national laws...
. The Indian software company Infosys
Infosys
Infosys Limited, formerly Infosys Technologies Limited is a global technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is the second largest IT exporter in India with 133,560 employees as of March 2011. It has offices in 33 countries and development centers in India, China,...
, is planning to start its operations in Tiruchirappalli.
Transport
Tiruchirappalli is well connected by road, rail and air with most cities and towns in India. The National Highways NH 45, NH 45B, NH 67, NH 210 and NH 227 pass through the city. Tiruchirappalli forms a part of the Division no. 1 of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation which is headquartered at KumbakonamKumbakonam
Kumbakonam , also spelt as Coombaconum in the records of British India , is a town and a special grade municipality in the Thanjavur district in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located 40 kilometres from Thanjavur and 272 kilometres from Chennai, it is the headquarters of the Kumbakonam...
. There are regular buses to Thanjavur, Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai is a town and a municipality in Pudukkottai district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Pudukkottai District was carved out of Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur districts in January 1974.It is the administrative headquarters of Pudukkottai District....
, Kanniyakumari, Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, Madurai
Madurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
, Palani
Palani
Palani is a city and a municipality in the Dindigul district of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located about 100 km South of Coimbatore City and 60 km west of Dindigul...
, Pondicherry, Coimbatore
Coimbatore
Coimbatore , also known as Kovai , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a major commercial centre in Tamil Nadu and is known as the "Manchester of South India"....
, Kodaikanal
Kodaikanal
-Climate:Kodaikanal has a monsoon-influenced subtropical highland climate . The temperatures are cool throughout the year due to the high elevation of the city.-Economy:...
and Tirupathi. Buses are also available to destinations in Karnataka
Karnataka
Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
and Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
. The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation or KSRTC is the state owned road transportation company in Karnataka.-About:KSRTC was set up in the year 1961 under the provisions of Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. It is wholly owned by the Government of Karnataka. The Government of India is also...
(KSRTC) operates special bus services between Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
and Tiruchirapalli during weekends. There are two major bus termini: the Chathram Bus Stand and the Central Bus Station, both situated close to each other. The bus termini are situated at a distance of 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi) from the main railway station. The city has an efficient local bus transportation system - both government-operated as well as private.
The Great Southern of India Railway Company was established in 1853 with its headquarters at Tiruchirappalli. In 1859, the company constructed its first railway line connecting Tiruchirappalli and Nagapattinam. Currently, Tiruchirappalli is an important railway junction in central Tamil Nadu and constitutes a separate division of the Southern Railway
Southern Railway (India)
The Southern Railway is the earliest of the 16 zones of the Indian Railways created in independent India. It was created on April 14, 1951 by merging three state railways namely Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway, and the Mysore State Railway. The South Indian Railway...
. There are frequent trains to Chennai, Madurai, Chidambaram
Chidambaram
Chidambaram is a fast growing industrial city in Eastern part of Tamil Nadu and the taluk headquarters of the Cuddalore district. It is located in 58 km from Pondicherry, 60 km from Karaikal, and 240 km south of Chennai by rail...
, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, Rameswaram, Mangalore
Mangalore
Mangalore is the chief port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located about west of the state capital, Bangalore. Mangalore lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghat mountain ranges, and is the administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district in south western...
, Tirupathi, Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, Guwahati
Guwahati
Guwahati, Pragjyotishpura in ancient Assam formerly known as Gauhati is a metropolis,the largest city of Assam in India and ancient urban area in North East India, with a population of 963,429. It is also the largest metropolitan area in north-eastern India...
and Cochin. There are nine daily express trains operating on the Chennai-Tiruchirappalli line, important among which are Vaigai Express
Vaigai express
The Vaigai Express is a super fast day express train running between Chennai and Madurai. It is one of the more prestigious trains of the Southern Railway zone of the Indian railways....
, Pallavan Express
Pallavan Express
The Pallavan Express is a superfast train operated by the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. This train connects the cities of Tiruchirapalli and Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the more prestigious trains of the Southern Railway.-General information:The train...
and the Rockfort Express
Rockfort Express
The Rockfort Express is the most popular night express train that connects Trichy and Chennai Egmore in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and extends till Kumbakonam. The train numbered 16178 departs from Kumbakonam at 19:55 Hours and reaches Trichy at 21:55 Hours as a link Express...
. The Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express
Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express
The Mysore-Mayiladuthurai Express is a Superfast train operated by the Southern Railway zone of the Indian Railways. This train connects the town of Mayiladuthurai with Mysore...
plies between Tiruchirappalli and Mysore on a daily basis, stopping at Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
on the way. Tiruchirappalli has rail connectivity with most important cities and towns in India.
The Tiruchirapalli International Airport is the second biggest airport in Tamil Nadu in terms of passenger traffic, cargo traffic as well as aircraft movement. It was first used to handle air traffic in 1938 when Tata Airlines
Tata Airlines
Tata Airlines, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. was founded by J. R. D. Tata in 1932 as Tata Sons.It was started as a mail service between Karachi, Bombay and Madras.-The beginning:...
commercial flights stopped at Tiruchirappalli on the Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
-Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
route. In 1948, Air Ceylon
Air Ceylon
Air Ceylon was the flag carrier airline of Sri Lanka from 1947 until 1978, when it was replaced by Air Lanka.- History :...
commenced daily passenger flights between Tiruchirappalli and Colombo via Jaffna. There are regular flights to Chennai, Kochi
Kochi
-Places:* Kochi, a city in the state of Kerala, India, formerly known as Cochin* Kingdom of Cochin, a former feudal city-state on Malabar Coast, India** Fort Kochi, one of the three main urban components which constitute the present day city of Kochi, Kerala, India...
, Kozhikode
Kozhikode
Kozhikode During Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, Kozhikkode was dubbed the "City of Spices" for its role as the major trading point of eastern spices. Kozhikode was once the capital of an independent kingdom of the same name and later of the erstwhile Malabar District...
, Sri Lanka,Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
, Sharjah and Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
.
Administration and politics
{|cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="1" style="float:right; border-collapse:collapse; border:2px white solid; font-size:x-small; font-family:verdana;"|-
|style="background:#659ec7; color:black;"|
Corporation officials
|-
|Mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
|
A. Jaya
|-
|Deputy Mayor
Deputy Mayor
Deputy mayor is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official in many local governments. Many elected deputy mayors are members of the city council who are given the title and serve as acting mayor in the mayor's absence...
|
M. Ashik Meera
|-
|Corporation Commissioner
|
K. Veera Raghava Rao
|-
|Commissioner of Police
|
E. Ma. Masanamuthu
|}
|}
The municipality
of Tiruchirappalli was inaugurated under the Town Improvements Act 1865 on November 1, 1866 covering an area of 18 square kilometre and originally consisted of two ex-officio and nine nominated members. Elections to the council were introduced in 1877 and the first chairman was elected in 1889. The municipality was upgraded to a municipal corporation
as per the Tiruchirappalli City Municipal Corporation Act 1994 by inclusion of the Srirangam
and Golden Rock municipalities. The municipal corporation currently covers an area of 146.7 square kilometre and comprises 60 wards and four administrative zones: Srirangam
, Ariyamangalam
, Golden Rock
and Abhishekapuram
.
The Tiruchirappalli City Municipal Corporation Council, the legislative body, comprises 60 councilors elected from each of the 60 wards and is headed by a mayor
assisted by a Deputy Mayor
. The executive wing is made up of seven departments: General administration, revenue, town planning, engineering, public health, information technology and personnel and is headed by a City Commissioner. The Commissioner is assisted by two executive engineers for the east and west sections, and Assistant Commissioners for personnel, accounts and revenue departments, a public relations officer, a city engineer, a city health officer and an Assistant Commissioner for each of the four zones.
The city of Tiruchirappalli is represented in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly by four elected members, one each for the Tiruchirappalli – I
, Tiruchirappalli – II, Srirangam
and Tiruverumbur
constituencies. Tiruchirappali is also a part of the Tiruchirappalli Lok Sabha constituency
and elects a member to the Lok Sabha
, the lower house of the Parliament of India
, once every five years.
The Lok Sabha seat has been held by the Indian National Congress
for four terms (1957–62, 1984-89, 1989-91 and 1991-96), the Communist Party of India
for three terms (1962–67, 1971-77 and 1977-80) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(2001–04 and 2009–present) and Bharatiya Janata Party
(1998-99 and 1999-2001) for two terms each. Candidates from the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
, Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
have won once each. Indian politician Rangarajan Kumaramangalam
who served as the Minister of Power in the government of Atal Behari Vajpayee, was elected to the Lok Sabha from Tiruchirappalli in the 1998 and 1999 elections.
Law and order is enforced by the Tamil Nadu police, which, for administrative purposes, has constituted Tiruchirappalli city as a separate district. The district is divided into eight sub-divisions with a total of 16 police stations. The Tiruchirappalli city police force is headed by a Commissioner of police assisted by Deputy Commissioners. Law and order enforcement in the suburban areas are handled by the Tiruchirappalli district police. As of 2008, Tiruchirappalli had a crime rate of 459.99 making it the second highest among cities in Tamil Nadu. However, Tiruchirappalli had the lowest proportion of murder, rape and kidnapping cases.
Even during British rule, Tiruchirappalli was recognized as an important educational centre in India. St. Joseph's College, opened in Nagapattinam
in 1846 and transferred to Tiruchirappalli in 1883, is one of the oldest educational institutions in South India. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) college, established in 1883, is another premium missionary institution in the city.
Tiruchirappalli has a total of 27 arts, science and law colleges, notable ones being the National College, Bishop Heber College
, Jamal Mohamed College
and the Government Law College. There are also 35 engineering colleges in the city. The National Institutes of Technology have a campus at Thuvakudi
on the outskirts of the city. The Tiruchirappalli branch of Anna University
was established following the bifurcation of Anna University in 2007. A total of 64 self-financing colleges offering courses on engineering
, architecture
, management
and computer applications in the districts of Ariyalur
, Cuddalore
, Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai
, Thanjavur
and Tiruvarur
are affiliated to this University. The SRM Group of Colleges established the SRM Institute of Science and Technology at Irungalur
near Tiruchirappalli followed by Chennai Medical College and Hospital in 2007. A proposal by the group to include the institutions in the SRM University
is under review of the Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India.
The Bharathidasan University
is based in Tiruchirappalli and exercises its jurisdiction over colleges in Tiruchirappalli district
and seven neighbouring ones. The university runs a management school, the Bharathidasan Institute of Management
in Tiruchirappalli in collaboration with BHEL. The Government of India's Ministry for Human Resources Development (HRD) has approved a proposal for the setting up of a campus of the Indian Institute of Management in Tiruchirappalli and the campus is expected to start functioning from the 2011-12 academic season.
There are a total of 100 government and private schools in Tiruchirappalli. The National High School was established in 1886 to counter Christian propaganda in missionary-run schools. The RSK Higher Secondary School, Campion Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School
, and St. Johns Vestry Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School are some of the notable schools in the city.
and cricket
are the most popular sports in Tiruchirappalli. Former Indian goalkeepers Charles Cornelius
and Leslie Fernandez
hail from the city. Construction of astro turf and an indoor stadium are currently in progress at the Anna Stadium complex, the city's principal hockey ground. Apart from the hockey ground, the stadium complex also includes a football ground, an athletic track, a swimming pool
, a gym
nasium, badminton court and a sports hostel. The Tiruchirappalli District Cricket Association (TDCA) is one of the constituents of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association
and regulates school, college and club cricket in the district. First class cricket matches are held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (previously, the Khajamalai
Stadium). At the golden jubilee celebrations of the association in 2008-09, plans have been mooted for the setting up of another cricket stadium and an academy in the outskirts of Tiruchirappalli city. The Mannarpuram Cricket Academy is one of the noted cricket coaching academies in Tiruchirappalli. Domestic football,tennis
and volleyball
tournaments are held in and around the city. International chess tournaments have also been held in Tiruchirappalli.
There are very few sources of entertainment in the city. The municipal corporation has been blamed for alleged decrepit conditions of its parks. The Trichinpoly Club or Trichy Club was established in Tiruchirappalli Cantonment in 1869. The club was disbanded in 1972 and its assets were taken over by the Madras Club
. The P. T. Rajan Park, Chinnaswamy Park, Lourdusamy Park, Raja Park, Parangiri Velusamy Park and Ibrahim Park are some of the important government-run parks in the city. Of these, the Raja Park and Ibrahim Park are frequented by children. There have been plans to set up a zoological park at M. R. Palaiyam on the outskirts of the city. Once completed, the zoo is expected to house about 500 animals belonging to 50 different species. The Anna Science Centre runs a planetarium
in Tiruchirappalli.
The Rasika Ranjana Sabha, founded in 1914, is the only popular venue for art and cultural events in the city. According to the Limca Book of Records
, the Morris theatre complex in Tiruchirappalli runs the largest number of regular film shows in the world. The Urvasi theatre is another notable movie theatre in Tiruchirappalli. There are a few shopping malls in the city, the Femina Shopping Mall (FSM) and the Spencer's Shopping Mall being the most prominent among them.
which launched a Tiruchirappalli edition in 2004 and The New Indian Express
which was publishing from Tiruchirappalli even before The Hindu. Some of the important Tamil-language newspapers that publish a Tiruchirappalli edition are Dina Thanthi
'Dina Mani
,Dina Malar
, Malai Malar
, Dinakaran
,Tamil Murasu
and Tamil Sudar. Popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan
launched a local supplement for Tiruchirappalli on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of its founding.
The first radio transmission station in Tiruchirappalli was opened by the All India Radio
(AIR) on May 16, 1939. AIR started providing direct-to-home enabled radio broadcasting service from 2006. In 2007, the AIR launched a separate Carnatic music channel - Ragam from Tiruchirappalli. Apart from the government
-owned AIR, private radio channels as Hello FM and Suryan FM
also operate FM stations in Tiruchirappalli. Indira Gandhi National Open University
's Gyan Vani started broadcasting from Tiruchirappalli in 2008. Tiruchirappalli's first campus community radio was started by Holy Cross College on December 22, 2006.
Television broadcasting from Chennai was started on August 15, 1975. Satellite television channels have been available from 1991 onwards. Direct-to-home cable television services are provided by DD Direct Plus
and Sun Direct DTH
.
(TNEB). Tiruchirappalli is the headquarters of the Trichy region of TNEB. The city along with its suburbs forms the Trichy Metro Electricity Distribution Circle which is further sub-divided into six divisions. A Chief Distribution engineer is stationed at the regional headquarters at Tennur
. Water supply is provided by the Tiruchirappalli City Corporation
. Of the six headworks from which the city gets its water supply, four are maintained by the municipal corporation and the rest by other agencies. Apart from the Gandhi market, Central Bus terminus and the Chathram bus terminus, solid waste management in the city is handled by the corporation. About 400 tonnes of solid waste are released from city every year. The principal garbage dumping ground
is at Ariyamangalam
. Recently, the Tiruchirappalli city corporation has gone in for scientific closure of the garbage dump and its replacement with a sewage treatment plant
. Waste water management in the Trichy-Srirangam under ground drainage (UGD) areas are handled by the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board
(TWAD) and in other areas by the Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. The high toxicity of the waste water released by the Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited (TDCL) is a major cause of concern for the corporation. The corporation's annual expenditure for the year 2010-11 is estimated to be Rs. 155.94 crores. Under the National Urban Sanitation Policy, Tiruchirappalli, with a sanitation coverage of 70 percent was ranked sixth in India and first in Tamil Nadu on the basis of sanitation for the year 2009-10. In January 2010, Tiruchirappalli became the first city in India where open defecation was prevented in all its slums.
Tiruchirappalli comes under the Tiruchi Telecom District of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
(BSNL), India's state-owned telecom and internet services provider. There are a total of about 20,000 business telephone subscribers in the city. Both Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Code division multiple access
(CDMA) mobile services are available. Apart from telecom, BSNL also provides broadband internet service.
BSNL began offering wireless internet services with the commencement of Evolution-Data Optimized
(EVDO) transmission in 2008. Tiruchirappalli is one of the few cities in India where BSNL's Caller Line Identification (CLI) based internet service Netone is available. Softnet (STPI), Tata VSNL
, Bharti
and Reliance
are other major broadband internet service providers in the city.
Tiruchirappalli has a passport office which commenced its operations on March 23, 1983. Apart from Tiruchirappalli, it also caters to the needs of seven adjacent districts namely, Karur
, Nagappattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai
, Thanjavur
, Ariyalur
and Tiruvarur
.
|}
|}
The municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
of Tiruchirappalli was inaugurated under the Town Improvements Act 1865 on November 1, 1866 covering an area of 18 square kilometre and originally consisted of two ex-officio and nine nominated members. Elections to the council were introduced in 1877 and the first chairman was elected in 1889. The municipality was upgraded to a municipal corporation
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
as per the Tiruchirappalli City Municipal Corporation Act 1994 by inclusion of the Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
and Golden Rock municipalities. The municipal corporation currently covers an area of 146.7 square kilometre and comprises 60 wards and four administrative zones: Srirangam
Srirangam
Srirangam , Old name is Vellithirumutha gramam and Tamil name is Thiruvarangam , is an island and a part of the city of Tiruchirapalli , in South India....
, Ariyamangalam
Ariyamangalam
Ariyamangalam is one of the four zones of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. One of SIDCO's two Trichy-based industrial estates is located in Ariyamangalam. The estate extends over an area of ....
, Golden Rock
Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli
Golden Rock is a zone of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. The factories of the Golden Rock Locomotive Workshops and the residential quarters of its employees are located here.- See Also :* Battle of Golden Rock...
and Abhishekapuram
Abhishekapuram
Abhishekapuram is a suburb of the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It constitutes one of the four zones of the Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation....
.
The Tiruchirappalli City Municipal Corporation Council, the legislative body, comprises 60 councilors elected from each of the 60 wards and is headed by a mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
assisted by a Deputy Mayor
Deputy Mayor
Deputy mayor is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official in many local governments. Many elected deputy mayors are members of the city council who are given the title and serve as acting mayor in the mayor's absence...
. The executive wing is made up of seven departments: General administration, revenue, town planning, engineering, public health, information technology and personnel and is headed by a City Commissioner. The Commissioner is assisted by two executive engineers for the east and west sections, and Assistant Commissioners for personnel, accounts and revenue departments, a public relations officer, a city engineer, a city health officer and an Assistant Commissioner for each of the four zones.
The city of Tiruchirappalli is represented in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly by four elected members, one each for the Tiruchirappalli – I
Tiruchirappalli - I (State Assembly Constituency)
Tiruchirapalli-I is a state assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu.- Madras State :- Tamil Nadu :- Post Delimitaion :Tiruchirappalli – I has been renamed as Tiruchirappalli East after the constituency delimitaions 2008.- References :...
, Tiruchirappalli – II, Srirangam
Srirangam (State Assembly Constituency)
- Madras State :- Tamil Nadu :- References :...
and Tiruverumbur
Thiruverambur (State Assembly Constituency)
Thiruverambur is a state assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu.- References :...
constituencies. Tiruchirappali is also a part of the Tiruchirappalli Lok Sabha constituency
Tiruchirappalli (Lok Sabha constituency)
-Assembly segments:The Tiruchirappalli Lok Sabha constituency is composed of the following assembly segments: :#Musiri#Lalgudi#Perambalur#Thuraiyur#Manachanallur#Kulithalai-Members of Parliament:- Election results : -References:* -See also:...
and elects a member to the Lok Sabha
Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha or House of the People is the lower house of the Parliament of India. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by direct election under universal adult suffrage. As of 2009, there have been fifteen Lok Sabhas elected by the people of India...
, the lower house of the Parliament of India
Parliament of India
The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India. Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India comprises the President and the two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...
, once every five years.
The Lok Sabha seat has been held by the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
for four terms (1957–62, 1984-89, 1989-91 and 1991-96), the Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India
The Communist Party of India is a national political party in India. In the Indian communist movement, there are different views on exactly when the Indian communist party was founded. The date maintained as the foundation day by CPI is 26 December 1925...
for three terms (1962–67, 1971-77 and 1977-80) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is a state political party in the states of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, India. The party was founded by M. G. Ramachandran and is now headed by J. Jayalalithaa. The party headquarters is in Royapettah, Chennai, and was gifted to the party in 1986 by its...
(2001–04 and 2009–present) and Bharatiya Janata Party
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...
(1998-99 and 1999-2001) for two terms each. Candidates from the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
The Communist Party of India is a political party in India. It has a strong presence in the states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. As of 2011, CPI is leading the state government in Tripura. It leads the Left Front coalition of leftist parties in various states and the national parliament of...
, Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is a political party in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu formed in 1994 by Mr. V. Gopalswamy , a member of Rajyasabha and a party activitist of DMK. Mr. V. Gopalsamy grew in the party from his student days. He actively participated in the party agitations and...
have won once each. Indian politician Rangarajan Kumaramangalam
Rangarajan Kumaramangalam
Phanindranath Rangarajan Kumaramangalam was a prominent politician of the Indian National Congress and later the Bharatiya Janata Party and a Member of Parliament from the Salem constituency from 1984 to 1996 and Tiruchirapalli constituency from 1998 to 2000...
who served as the Minister of Power in the government of Atal Behari Vajpayee, was elected to the Lok Sabha from Tiruchirappalli in the 1998 and 1999 elections.
Law and order is enforced by the Tamil Nadu police, which, for administrative purposes, has constituted Tiruchirappalli city as a separate district. The district is divided into eight sub-divisions with a total of 16 police stations. The Tiruchirappalli city police force is headed by a Commissioner of police assisted by Deputy Commissioners. Law and order enforcement in the suburban areas are handled by the Tiruchirappalli district police. As of 2008, Tiruchirappalli had a crime rate of 459.99 making it the second highest among cities in Tamil Nadu. However, Tiruchirappalli had the lowest proportion of murder, rape and kidnapping cases.
Education
Nagapattinam
Nagapattinam is a town in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Nagapattinam District. It is a prominent seaport on the east coast of India and an important centre of trade and commerce.The town of Nagapattinam dates back to the Sangam period...
in 1846 and transferred to Tiruchirappalli in 1883, is one of the oldest educational institutions in South India. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) college, established in 1883, is another premium missionary institution in the city.
Tiruchirappalli has a total of 27 arts, science and law colleges, notable ones being the National College, Bishop Heber College
Bishop Heber College
Bishop Heber College is a religious minority educational institution in Puthur, Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded in 1966, although the school has historical roots extending through various earlier local religious schools to about the mid-nineteenth century...
, Jamal Mohamed College
Jamal Mohamed College
-Arts courses:* B.A Arabic Literature* B.A Economics* B.A English Literature* B.A History* B.Com-Science courses:* B.Sc Botany* B.Sc Chemistry* B.Sc Computer Science* B.Sc IT* B.Sc Mathematics* B.Sc Physics* B.Sc Zoology* B.Sc Information Technology...
and the Government Law College. There are also 35 engineering colleges in the city. The National Institutes of Technology have a campus at Thuvakudi
Thuvakudi
Thuvakudi is a 3rd Grade Municipality in Tiruchirappalli City in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is approximately 335 km from the nearest cosmopolis — Chennai...
on the outskirts of the city. The Tiruchirappalli branch of Anna University
Anna University Trichy
Anna University of Technology, Tiruchirappalli is a technological university located at Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. It was established on 1 February 2007 as a result of a decision to split Anna University into six universities, namely, Anna University, Chennai, Anna University of...
was established following the bifurcation of Anna University in 2007. A total of 64 self-financing colleges offering courses on engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
, architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
and computer applications in the districts of Ariyalur
Ariyalur district
Ariyalur is an administrative district in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. The district headquarters are located at Ariyalur...
, Cuddalore
Cuddalore District
Cuddalore District is a district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The city of Cuddalore is the district headquarters. For the first time, urn burial grave goods were found in the village of Marungur in the district, carrying inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi from the 1st century...
, Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai District
Pudukkottai District is a district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The city of Pudukkottai is the district headquarters...
, Thanjavur
Thanjavur District
Thanjavur District is one of the 32 districts of the state of Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India. Its headquarters is Thanjavur.-Geography:...
and Tiruvarur
Tiruvarur District
Tiruvarur district is one of the 30 districts in the Tamil Nadu state of India. The district occupies an area of 2161 km². It is lies between Nagapattinam district on the east and Thanjavur district on the west, and is bounded by the Palk Strait on the south...
are affiliated to this University. The SRM Group of Colleges established the SRM Institute of Science and Technology at Irungalur
Irungalur
Irungalur is a suburb of the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Chennai Medical College and Hospital run by the SRM Group of Colleges is located here....
near Tiruchirappalli followed by Chennai Medical College and Hospital in 2007. A proposal by the group to include the institutions in the SRM University
SRM University
SRM University is a co-educational private university from the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded in the year 1985 as SRM Engineering college in Kattankulathur, under Anna University. The university now has four campuses in Tamil Nadu , one in Modinagar, near Delhi...
is under review of the Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India.
The Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University
Bharathidasan University is a university in the city of Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu state, India. It has affiliated colleges in districts of the state, including Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Tiruchirapalli. It is a recognised university, supported by the...
is based in Tiruchirappalli and exercises its jurisdiction over colleges in Tiruchirappalli district
Tiruchirappalli district
Tiruchirapalli District , also known as Tiruchchirapalli District or Trichy District, is located along the Kaveri River in Tamil Nadu, India...
and seven neighbouring ones. The university runs a management school, the Bharathidasan Institute of Management
Bharathidasan Institute of Management
Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli or BIM-Trichy is a business school, established in 1984 in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India...
in Tiruchirappalli in collaboration with BHEL. The Government of India's Ministry for Human Resources Development (HRD) has approved a proposal for the setting up of a campus of the Indian Institute of Management in Tiruchirappalli and the campus is expected to start functioning from the 2011-12 academic season.
There are a total of 100 government and private schools in Tiruchirappalli. The National High School was established in 1886 to counter Christian propaganda in missionary-run schools. The RSK Higher Secondary School, Campion Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School
Campion Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School
Campion Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School is a boys private boarding school started in 1934 by the Very Reverend Monsignor Joseph de Rozario, a former judge who entered the Secular Order aged 49. It was managed by Jesuit Priests but has been run since 1975 by the Montfort Brothers of...
, and St. Johns Vestry Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School are some of the notable schools in the city.
Sports and recreation
HockeyHockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
are the most popular sports in Tiruchirappalli. Former Indian goalkeepers Charles Cornelius
Charles Cornelius
Charles Cornelius was an Indian hockey player who represented the Indian national hockey team in the 1973 Hockey World Cup and the 1974 Asian Games in Teheran. Renowned for his abilities, his career was cut short by knee problems.- References :...
and Leslie Fernandez
Leslie Fernandez (hockey player)
Leslie Fernandez is a railway worker and former Indian national field hockey player. He served as a goalkeeper in the Indian national hockey team which won the gold medal in the 1975 Hockey World Cup.- References :...
hail from the city. Construction of astro turf and an indoor stadium are currently in progress at the Anna Stadium complex, the city's principal hockey ground. Apart from the hockey ground, the stadium complex also includes a football ground, an athletic track, a swimming pool
Swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
, a gym
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
nasium, badminton court and a sports hostel. The Tiruchirappalli District Cricket Association (TDCA) is one of the constituents of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association
Tamil Nadu Cricket Association
Tamil Nadu Cricket Association is the governing body of the Cricket activities in the Tamil Nadu state of India and the Tamil Nadu cricket team...
and regulates school, college and club cricket in the district. First class cricket matches are held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (previously, the Khajamalai
Khajamalai
Khajamalai or Kajamalai is a suburb of the city of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. The Bharathidasan University's Centre of Distance Education is located here. The Jawaharlal Nehru cricket stadium, the city's primary venue for first class cricket matches and the Anna Stadium complex are also...
Stadium). At the golden jubilee celebrations of the association in 2008-09, plans have been mooted for the setting up of another cricket stadium and an academy in the outskirts of Tiruchirappalli city. The Mannarpuram Cricket Academy is one of the noted cricket coaching academies in Tiruchirappalli. Domestic football,tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
tournaments are held in and around the city. International chess tournaments have also been held in Tiruchirappalli.
There are very few sources of entertainment in the city. The municipal corporation has been blamed for alleged decrepit conditions of its parks. The Trichinpoly Club or Trichy Club was established in Tiruchirappalli Cantonment in 1869. The club was disbanded in 1972 and its assets were taken over by the Madras Club
Madras Club
Madras Club, or Adyar Club, is a gentleman's club in the city of Chennai, India. Founded in 1832, it is the second oldest of its kind in India.- History :...
. The P. T. Rajan Park, Chinnaswamy Park, Lourdusamy Park, Raja Park, Parangiri Velusamy Park and Ibrahim Park are some of the important government-run parks in the city. Of these, the Raja Park and Ibrahim Park are frequented by children. There have been plans to set up a zoological park at M. R. Palaiyam on the outskirts of the city. Once completed, the zoo is expected to house about 500 animals belonging to 50 different species. The Anna Science Centre runs a planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
in Tiruchirappalli.
The Rasika Ranjana Sabha, founded in 1914, is the only popular venue for art and cultural events in the city. According to the Limca Book of Records
Limca Book of Records
Limca Book of Records is a record book of Indian origin. First published in 1990, when the Limca Brand was owned by Parle Group. The book continued to be published by Coca-Cola, when they bought the Limca Brand. The 20th edition of this book was released by Amitabh Bachchan in March 2009...
, the Morris theatre complex in Tiruchirappalli runs the largest number of regular film shows in the world. The Urvasi theatre is another notable movie theatre in Tiruchirappalli. There are a few shopping malls in the city, the Femina Shopping Mall (FSM) and the Spencer's Shopping Mall being the most prominent among them.
Media
According to the Registrar of newspapers in India, a total of 111 newspapers have been registered in Tiruchirappalli. The weekly newspaper Wednesday Review, founded in 1905, is the first prominent journal to be published from Tiruchirappalli. Among the major English-language newspapers being published from Tiruchirappalli are The HinduThe Hindu
The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
which launched a Tiruchirappalli edition in 2004 and The New Indian Express
The New Indian Express
The New Indian Express is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper published by the Express Publications. It was founded in 1932 as the Indian Express, under the ownership of Chennai-based P. Varadarajulu Naidu. In 1991, following the death of the then owner Ramnath Goenka, the Goenka...
which was publishing from Tiruchirappalli even before The Hindu. Some of the important Tamil-language newspapers that publish a Tiruchirappalli edition are Dina Thanthi
Dina Thanthi
Dina Thanthi a.K.a "Daily Thanthi" is a reputed daily Tamil newspaper in Tirunelveli, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Erode, Dindigul, Trichy, Salem, Nagercoil, Cuddalore, Vellore, Pondicherry and Thanjavur. It is owned by Mr.B. Sivanthi Aditanar. It was founded by S. P...
'Dina Mani
Dina Mani
Dina Mani is daily Tamil newspaper printed and published from Chennai, Coimbatore, Vellore, Trichy, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Dharmapuri, Bangalore, and New Delhi in India. The newspaper was established in 1933 and owned by The New Indian Express Group.The first edition came in 1934 september 11...
,Dina Malar
Dina Malar
Dinamalar or "Daily Malar" is a daily newspaper in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Pondicherry, Tirunelveli, Nagercoil, Trichy, Erode, Vellore and Tamil Nadu, India. Dinamalar was founded by T. V. Ramasubbaiyer. T. V...
, Malai Malar
Malai Malar
Malai Malar is daily evening Tamil newspaper in Chennai, Salem and Coimbatore, India. It is owned by Daily Thanti group. It was founded by S. P. Adithanar in 1977 at Coimbatore and the current director is Sivandhi Adithanar....
, Dinakaran
Dinakaran
Dinakaran is a Tamil daily newspaper distributed in India. , Dinakaran is the largest Tamil daily newspaper in terms of net paid circulation, which was 1,235,220...
,Tamil Murasu
Tamil Murasu
Tamil Murasu is a Singapore based Tamil language newspaper. Launched in 1935 by Thamizhavel G. Sarangapani, Tamil Murasu is Singapore's only Tamil language newspaper...
and Tamil Sudar. Popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan
Ananda Vikatan
Ananda Vikatan ஆனந்த விகடன் is the leading Tamil language weekly magazine published from Chennai, India. It is part of the Vikatan group which also publishes Junior Vikatan , Chutti Vikatan , Aval Vikatan , Naanayam Vikatan , Sakthi Vikatan , Motor Vikatan and Pasumai Vikatan Ananda Vikatan ஆனந்த...
launched a local supplement for Tiruchirappalli on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of its founding.
The first radio transmission station in Tiruchirappalli was opened by the All India Radio
All India Radio
All India Radio , officially known since 1956 as Akashvani , is the radio broadcaster of India and a division of Prasar Bharati. Established in 1936, it is the sister service of Prasar Bharati's Doordarshan, the national television broadcaster. All India Radio is one of the largest radio networks...
(AIR) on May 16, 1939. AIR started providing direct-to-home enabled radio broadcasting service from 2006. In 2007, the AIR launched a separate Carnatic music channel - Ragam from Tiruchirappalli. Apart from the government
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
-owned AIR, private radio channels as Hello FM and Suryan FM
Suryan FM
Suryan FM 93.5Sun Network owns two Radio brands: Suryan FM in Tamil Nadu and for other territories Red FM.The top slot is a result of a carefully planned thoroughly enjoyable, round-the-clock, wholesome entertainment-oriented package and there is a substantial localization of content to retain the...
also operate FM stations in Tiruchirappalli. Indira Gandhi National Open University
Indira Gandhi National Open University
The Indira Gandhi National Open University , known as IGNOU is a national university with its headquarters in New Delhi, Delhi, India. Named after former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, the university was established in 1985 with a budget of 2000 crore, when the Parliament of India passed...
's Gyan Vani started broadcasting from Tiruchirappalli in 2008. Tiruchirappalli's first campus community radio was started by Holy Cross College on December 22, 2006.
Television broadcasting from Chennai was started on August 15, 1975. Satellite television channels have been available from 1991 onwards. Direct-to-home cable television services are provided by DD Direct Plus
DD Direct Plus
DD Direct+ is an Indian free-to-air digital satellite television owned by Doordarshan. Which provides digital video and audio programming to households and businesses in India. It offers a satellite alternative to the free-view service on digital terrestrial television, with a broadly similar...
and Sun Direct DTH
Sun Direct DTH
Sun Direct is an Indian direct broadcast satellite service provider. Its satellite service, launched on 2005, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in India. Sun Direct uses MPEG-4 digital compression technology, transmitting on INSAT 4B at 93.5°E. and MEASAT-3 at 91.5°E...
.
Utility services
Electricity supply to the city is regulated and distributed by the Tamil Nadu Electricity BoardTamil Nadu Electricity Board
The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board TNEB is a statutory body formed on 01.07.1957 under the Electricity Supply Act, 1948 as a successor to the erstwhile Electricity Department of the Government of Madras. India, that generates, distributes and regulates the electricity supply in the state...
(TNEB). Tiruchirappalli is the headquarters of the Trichy region of TNEB. The city along with its suburbs forms the Trichy Metro Electricity Distribution Circle which is further sub-divided into six divisions. A Chief Distribution engineer is stationed at the regional headquarters at Tennur
Tennur
Tennur is one of the important business districts in the town of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It is situated close to the Mahatma Gandhi market and forms a part of the Abhishekapuram zone of the Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. The Tiruchirappalli branch of the Dakshin Bharat Hindi...
. Water supply is provided by the Tiruchirappalli City Corporation
Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation
Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation is the municipal corporation which looks after the city administration of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, India. It consists of a legislative and an executive body...
. Of the six headworks from which the city gets its water supply, four are maintained by the municipal corporation and the rest by other agencies. Apart from the Gandhi market, Central Bus terminus and the Chathram bus terminus, solid waste management in the city is handled by the corporation. About 400 tonnes of solid waste are released from city every year. The principal garbage dumping ground
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
is at Ariyamangalam
Ariyamangalam
Ariyamangalam is one of the four zones of Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. One of SIDCO's two Trichy-based industrial estates is located in Ariyamangalam. The estate extends over an area of ....
. Recently, the Tiruchirappalli city corporation has gone in for scientific closure of the garbage dump and its replacement with a sewage treatment plant
Sewage treatment
Sewage treatment, or domestic wastewater treatment, is the process of removing contaminants from wastewater and household sewage, both runoff and domestic. It includes physical, chemical, and biological processes to remove physical, chemical and biological contaminants...
. Waste water management in the Trichy-Srirangam under ground drainage (UGD) areas are handled by the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board
Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board
Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board is a public agency formed by the Government of Tamil Nadu, assigned with task of providing water supply and sewerage facilities to the state of Tamil Nadu . It was formed on April 14, 1971.-External links:*...
(TWAD) and in other areas by the Tiruchirappalli Municipal Corporation. The high toxicity of the waste water released by the Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited (TDCL) is a major cause of concern for the corporation. The corporation's annual expenditure for the year 2010-11 is estimated to be Rs. 155.94 crores. Under the National Urban Sanitation Policy, Tiruchirappalli, with a sanitation coverage of 70 percent was ranked sixth in India and first in Tamil Nadu on the basis of sanitation for the year 2009-10. In January 2010, Tiruchirappalli became the first city in India where open defecation was prevented in all its slums.
Tiruchirappalli comes under the Tiruchi Telecom District of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is a state-owned telecommunications company headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is the largest provider of fixed telephony and fourth largest mobile telephony provider in India, and is also a provider of broadband services...
(BSNL), India's state-owned telecom and internet services provider. There are a total of about 20,000 business telephone subscribers in the city. Both Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Code division multiple access
Code division multiple access
Code division multiple access is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standards called cdmaOne, CDMA2000 and WCDMA , which are often referred to as simply CDMA, and use CDMA as an underlying channel access...
(CDMA) mobile services are available. Apart from telecom, BSNL also provides broadband internet service.
BSNL began offering wireless internet services with the commencement of Evolution-Data Optimized
Evolution-Data Optimized
Evolution-Data Optimized or Evolution-Data only is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access...
(EVDO) transmission in 2008. Tiruchirappalli is one of the few cities in India where BSNL's Caller Line Identification (CLI) based internet service Netone is available. Softnet (STPI), Tata VSNL
Tata Communications
Tata Communications Limited ) is a telecommunications company located in Mumbai. They own a submarine cable network, a Tier-1 IP network, and also rent data center and colocation space. They operate India's largest data center in Pune...
, Bharti
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited , commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. It operates a GSM network in all countries, providing 2G or 3G services depending upon the country of operation...
and Reliance
Reliance Communications
Reliance Communications Ltd. is an Indian broadband and telecommunications company headquartered in Navi Mumbai, India. RCOM is the world's 16th largest mobile phone operator with over 144 million subscribers. Established on 2004, a subsidiary of the Reliance Group...
are other major broadband internet service providers in the city.
Tiruchirappalli has a passport office which commenced its operations on March 23, 1983. Apart from Tiruchirappalli, it also caters to the needs of seven adjacent districts namely, Karur
Karur District
Karur District is located center along the Kaveri & Amaravati rivers in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. The main town in Karur District is the city of Karur, which is also the district headquarter. It had a population of 935,686 as of 2001. It is 33.27% urbanized as per Census 2001...
, Nagappattinam, Perambalur, Pudukkottai
Pudukkottai District
Pudukkottai District is a district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The city of Pudukkottai is the district headquarters...
, Thanjavur
Thanjavur District
Thanjavur District is one of the 32 districts of the state of Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India. Its headquarters is Thanjavur.-Geography:...
, Ariyalur
Ariyalur district
Ariyalur is an administrative district in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. The district headquarters are located at Ariyalur...
and Tiruvarur
Tiruvarur District
Tiruvarur district is one of the 30 districts in the Tamil Nadu state of India. The district occupies an area of 2161 km². It is lies between Nagapattinam district on the east and Thanjavur district on the west, and is bounded by the Palk Strait on the south...
.
Footnotes
The official spelling, as per the municipal corporation website is "Tiruchirappalli". However, the spellings Tiruchirapalli, Tiruchchirapalli and Tiruchchirappalli are also widely used. The 2011 population totals are provisional. The actual statistics of the 2011 India census are yet to be released. Click on the "Commissioner Office" tab to get the name and contact details of police commissioner of Tiruchirappalli city district.External links
- Trichy travel Federation (TTF) - ttf.co.in
- Trichyportal - Trichy Forum - trichyportal.com
- Trichy Corporation - trichycorporation.gov.in
- Trichyonline services and information about Trichy - trichyonline.net
- Trichy Malayalee Charitable Trust - tmctrust.org