Nagapattinam district

Nagapattinam district is a coastal district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. Nagapattinam district was carved out by bifurcating the erstwhile composite Thanjavur district on October 19, 1991. The town of Nagapattinam is the district headquarters. As of 2011, the district had a population of 1,616,450 with a sex-ratio of 1,025 females for every 1,000 males. It is the only discontiguous district in Tamil NaduEtymologyNagapattinam is derived from Nagar, referring to people from Sri Lanka who settled here, and pattinam referring to town. The town was also called Cholakula Vallipattinam during the Chola period, when it was one of the important ports. Ptolemy refers to Nagapattinam as Nikam and mentions it as one of the most important trade centres of the ancient Tamil country. This view is doubtful as there is no contemporary evidence to prove the existence of the town as a metropolis in the name of "Nikama" or "Nikam". Nagapattinam was referred to by early writers and the Portuguese as "the city of Coromandel". Appar and Tirugnanasambandar, the 7th-century saint poets refer to the city as Nagai in their verses in Tevaram. The town was originally called "Nagai"; the word Pattinam was attached during the Chola era when the town emerged as an important port.