Madurai - Tamilnadu

Madurai (Tamil: மதுரை Madura to 1949) is a town in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The city, one of the oldest in South Asia lies in 134 m above sea level on the banks of the river Vaigai and is now about 1.1 million inhabitants. This is the capital of Madurai to Chennai and the industrial city of Coimbatore, the largest city in the state. Madurai is the capital of the eponymous district.

  Plan of the old city of Madurai

Madurai is divided into the old town on the southern and the resulting during the colonial period New Town on the northern bank of the Vaigai River. The center of the old town and the main attraction is the great Madurais Minakshi temple, with its highly visible Gopurams. The essentially during the Nayak-time in the 15th to 17 Century, this temple is one of the finest examples of Dravidian temple architecture. The urban layout of the Old Town is directed by several concentric ring roads and axially on the Gopurams tapering streets after the Minakshi Temple. This embodies the Madurai type of classical south Indian temple city, though not in the same regularity, such as the ideal example Srirangam.

History

Madurai, one of the cultural centers of the Tamil people, has a rich cultural presumably to the 2500 year old heritage. Since pre-Christian times, the city is an important religious and commercial center. Madurai was at least 1000 years without interruption, the capital of the Kingdom of the Pandyas and maintained demonstrable trade with Greeks, Romans and Chinese.

Madurai fell in the 10th Century, the Chola king Parantaka. The Pandyas obtained during the 13th Century, although once again the rule back, but at the beginning of the 14th Century Malik Kafur commanded during a raid by the South an unprovoked attack, plundered and destroyed much of the city. Shortly thereafter, Madurai was an independent sultanate. In 1364 joined Madurai to the Hindu Vijayanagar Empire, which was administered by Nayaks. Gained its independence in 1565, the Nayaks - Madurai under their protection experienced a renaissance and was rebuilt. Part of the Palace of Nayaks under Tirumalai Nayak (1623-1655) built are still standing. By the middle of the 18th Century Madurai was under the control of Nayaks, until the British gradually took over the rule.

In India's last census in 2001 were in Madurai registered 922 913 inhabitants. Madurai is one of the few Indian cities with a negative population development projections for the year 2009 that has Madurai only 895 607 inhabitants. The population of Greater Madurai, however, is of just under 1.2 million in 2001 rose to over 1.3 million.

The main language in Madurai is like all over Tamil Nadu, the Tamil. There are a larger minority of speakers of Saurashtri that belongs in contrast to the otherwise popular in South India Dravidian languages Indo-Aryan language family. The spokesman Saurashtri belong to the caste of weavers Patnulkarans and come originally from northwest India.