Padmanabhapuram

Padmanabhapuram ; பத்மனாபபுரம்
State :	India
State :	Tamil Nadu
District :	Kanyakumari
Sub-district :	Calculam
Location :	8 ° 23 ' N , 77 ° 33' E Coordinates: 8 ° 23 ' N , 77 ° 33' E
Residents :	21,342 (2011)

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Padmanabhapuram ( Tamil : பத்மனாபபுரம் Patmaṉāpapuram , Malayalam : പദ്മനാഭപുരം Padmanābhapuraṃ [ ˈpad̪məˌnaːbʱəpuɾʌm ]) is a city in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu . It is located in the Kanyakumari district just north of the southern tip of India ( Cape Komorin ) near the border with the neighboring state of Kerala . The next largest cities are the district capital Nagercoil and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), the capital of Kerala. According to the 2011 census, Padmanabhapuram has around 21,000 inhabitants.

history

The today insignificant Padmanabhapuram was from 1550 for two hundred years the residence of the kings of Travancore , who ruled the southern part of today's Kerala. The name of the city is derived from Padmanabha ("he with the lotus navel"), a form of the god Vishnu , who was worshiped as a family deity by the rulers of Travancore. In 1750 the capital was moved to Thiruvananthapuram. After Indian independence in 1947, Padmanabhapuram first came to the state of Travancore-Cochin , before the southernmost part of Travancore was added to the state of Madras (since 1969 Tamil Nadu) as the Kanyakumari district.

population

Sixty percent of Padmanabhapuram's residents are Hindus , 21 percent are Muslims and 19 percent are Christians . The main language, as in all of Tamil Nadu, is Tamil, which is spoken by 88 percent of the population as their mother tongue. The remaining 12 percent speak Malayalam , the language of the neighboring state of Kerala.

Royal palace

The main attraction of the city is the Royal Palace of Padmanabhapuram, which is considered to be the largest wooden palace in Asia. The sprawling 2.4 hectare complex consists of numerous buildings of various ages, mostly made of wood, and is one of the most important examples of Keralesian architecture. Although Padmanabhapuram is now part of Tamil Nadu, the palace complex is still owned the government of Kerala.

Udayagiri Fort

Close to the palace is the Udayagiri Fort from the 17th and 18th centuries. The fortress was formerly the headquarters of the army of the Indian princely state of Travancore. The mighty surrounding walls of the fort have been preserved. Inside, a park has been created with a ruined chapel from the 18th century. It contains the graves of the Flemish general Eustachius de Lannoy (1715–1777) and his family. As an officer in the Dutch East India Company , in 1741, after the Battle of Colachel, he was captured by India and became Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Travancore State. Raja Marthanda Varma built a chapel for the devout Catholic who was married to an Indian woman and allowed him to practice his religion freely. It was here that the Hindu nobleman and palace official Devasahayam Pillai got to know the Catholic faith, converted to Catholicism despite the prohibition and was therefore executed in 1752. In 2012 he was beatified .