Kumbakonam

Kumbakonam is a city municipal corporation in the Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu, India, about 282 km from Chennai and 40 km from Thanjavur. It lies between the Kaveri river to the north and the Arasalar river to the south, and it is the second-largest city in its district after Thanjavur. Known as the temple city for its dense concentration of Hindu shrines, it hosts the Mahamaham festival every twelve years, which draws pilgrims from across the country. Its history reaches back to the Sangam period and passed through the Cholas, Pallavas, Pandyas, the Vijayanagara Empire, the Nayaks and the Marathas. During British rule it became a centre of Hindu scholarship and Western education, earning the name Cambridge of South India. It was constituted a municipality in 1866 and upgraded to a municipal corporation on 24 August 2021, and the 2011 census counted 140,156 people.