About Chennai

Chennai, was popularly known as Madras till 1996, is the 4th (largest) metropolitan city of India. It’s located on the Coromandel Coast and serves as the capital of Tamil Nadu state. Chennai was named from Chennaipatanam which got its name from the ruler of this region Dhamara Chennapa Nayukudu. Chennai is known as the gateway of the south. The rapid growth in economy and industrial activities has led to the migration of loads of people from different parts of Tamil Nadu and India.

Demographics:

The provisional population census of 2011 count says that the population of Chennai is 8,696,010 with a density of 204 per hectare. It experiences a rapid rise in population due to the natural increase and also the higher rate of in-migration. The population growth rate is 7.77 % in the year in the last decade.

Connectivity:

Chennai is connected by golden quadrilateral system of highways. Its connected to the other parts of India by NH-4 linking Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore in the west, NH-5 joining Buwaneshwar in the east, NH-45 also known as the GST road connecting Trichy and NH- 205 terminating at Mandapalle in Andhra Pradesh. It has two main railway terminals Chennai Central and Chennai Egmore. Further it’s connected by LRT from different parts of the city. The new metro project CMRL is also being constructed with two corridors linking the city’s different parts. The city is connected by two ports, Chennai port and Ennore port. The Chennai port is the second busiest container hub in India. The Chennai international airport located at Meenampakkam on GST Road.

Administration:

Chennai’s city administration is governed by Chennai Corporation that was established in the year 1688. The region of Chennai is divided into north, south and central Chennai with its jurisdiction extending to 426 sq. km. CMDA, Chennai metropolitan development authority has jurisdiction spread over 1,192 sq.km which includes the peripheral areas of Chennai like OMR, GST roads.

Economy:

Chennais economy is well balanced between manufacturing and service sector diversified into automobile, software, healthcare, hardware manufacturing and financial service industries. It is expected to grow to 100 million dollars economy by 2025. This is 2.5 times higher than the existing. Chennais Tidel Park is the largest IT park built in Asia. Number of software companies have their offsets here with some having Chennai as their main base like Infosys. BMW and Ford also have their offices in Maraimalai Nagar which is a satellite town in suburbs of Chennai.