Chennai also known as Madras (the official name until 1996), is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal, it is the biggest cultural, economic and educational centre of south India. According to the 2011 Indian census, it is the sixth-most populous city and fourth-most populous urban agglomeration in India.
The city together with the adjoining regions constitute the Chennai Metropolitan Area, which is the 36th-largest urban area by population in the world. Chennai is among the most-visited Indian cities by foreign tourists. It was ranked the 43rd-most visited city in the world for the year 2015. The Quality of Living Survey rated Chennai as the safest city in India. Chennai attracts 45 percent of health tourists visiting India, and 30 to 40 percent of domestic health tourists. As such, it is termed "India's health capital." As a growing metropolitan city in a developing country, Chennai confronts substantial pollution, as well as other logistical and socio-economic problems.
Tourism-guide publisher Lonely Planet named Chennai as one of the top ten cities in the world to visit in 2015. Chennai is ranked as a beta-level city in the Global Cities Index, and was ranked the best city in India by India Today in the 2014 annual Indian city survey. In 2015 Chennai was named the hottest; city (worth visiting, and worth living in for long term) by the BBC, citing the mixture of both modern and traditional values. National Geographic mentioned Chennai as the only South Asian city to feature in its 2015 Top 10 food cities list. Chennai was also named the ninth-best cosmopolitan city in the world by Lonely Planet. In October 2017, Chennai was added to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) list for its rich musical tradition.
The Chennai Metropolitan Area is one of the largest municipal economies of India. Chennai is nicknamed "The Detroit of India", with more than one-third of India's automobile industry being based in the city. Home to the Tamil film industry, Chennai is also known as a major film production centre. Chennai is one of the 100 Indian cities to be developed as a smart city under the Smart Cities Mission.
With temples, beaches and centres of historical and cultural significance, including the UNESCO Heritage Site of Mahabalipuram, Chennai is one of the most-visited cities in India. The city serves as the gateway to the southern part of India with tourists landing in the city and then visiting the rest of the region.

Sri Kapaleeshwarar Temple is a Hindu Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva located in Mylapore, Chennai. The form of Shiva's consort Parvati worshipped at this temple is called Karpagambal is from Tamil (Goddess of the Wish-Yielding Tree). The Temple is the most ancient one that has been built around the 7th century CE in Dravidian architecture.
The original Temple structure is said to have been destroyed by the Portuguese in the 16th century AD. St. Thomas Cathedral Basilica, Chennai was then built in the place where the original temple structure stood.
According to the Puranas, Devi Shakti worshipped Lord Shiva in the form of a peacock, giving the vernacular name Mylai to the area that developed around the temple - "Mayil" is Tamil for peacock. Lord Shiva is worshiped as Kapaleeswarar, and is represented by the Lingam.
His consort Devi Parvati is depicted as Karpagambal. The presiding deity is revered in the 7th century Tamil Saiva canonical work, the Tevaram, written by Tamil saint poets known as the Nayanars and classified as Paadal Petra Sthalam.
The temple has numerous shrines, with those of Sri Kapaleeswarar and Devi Karpagambal being the most prominent. The temple complex houses many halls. The temple has six daily rituals at various times from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and four yearly festivals on its calendar. The Arubathimooval festival celebrated during the Tamil month of Panguni is the most prominent festival in the temple. The present masonry structure was built during the Vijayanagar rulers of the Tuluva Dynasty (1491-1570 CE).

Santhome Church, also known as St. Thomas Cathedral Basilica and National Shrine of Saint Thomas is a Roman Catholic minor basilica in Santhome, in the city of Chennai (Madras). It was built in the 16th century by Portugueseexplorers, over the tomb of Saint Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. In 1893, it was rebuilt as a church with the status of a cathedral by the British. The British version still stands today. It was designed in Neo-Gothic style, favoured by British architects in the late 19th century. This church is one of the only three known churches in the world built over the tomb of an apostle of Jesus, the other two being St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City and Santiago de Compostela Cathedralin Galicia, Spain.
According to legend Saint Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, arrived at Muziris in present-day Kerala state in India from the Roman province of Judea in A.D. 52 and preached between A.D. 52 and A.D 72, when he was martyred on St. Thomas Mount. It is claimed that St Thomas' apostolic ministry in India took place specifically at Cranganore along the Malabar coast from 52 A.D to 68 A.D. His journey through Kerala is said to have resulted in numerous conversions. After spending 10 years on the Malabar coast he is said to have travelled Eastwards across the Deccan Plateau, arriving in Mylapore in 68 A.D.
The cave at little mount is claimed to be his favourite preaching spot. A 2000 year old never drying, a miraculous stream of water on a rock face are said to be examples of the apostle's divine exploits. A church atop St. Thomas mount was built by Portuguese in 1547 to mark the spot. It was on this St. Thomas Mount that the apostle was said to be killed by a lance which pierced through his back.
His mortal remains were believed to be buried in the location over which the present day Santhomes Cathedral Basilica stands. Sometime in the 10th century A.D a group of Nestorian Christians from Persia founded the Christian village of San Thomes and proceeded to build a church over the burial site of St. Thomas. This structure fell to ruins between 14th and 15th century. In 1522 the Portuguese moved the apostle's remains to a new tomb and church which attained the status of Cathedral in 1606.

Marina Beach is a natural urban beach in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, along the Bay of Bengal. The beach runs from near Fort St. George in the north to Foreshore Estate in the south, a distance of 6.0 km (3.7 mi), making it the longest natural urban beach in the country.The Marina is primarily sandy, unlike the short, rocky formations that make up the Juhu Beach in Mumbai. The average width of the beach is 300 m (980 ft) and the width at the widest stretch is 437 m (1,434 ft).
Before the 16th century, there were frequent incident of inundation of land near the coast due to rise in sea level. When the sea withdrew, several ridges and lagoons were left behind. On the southern side of Fort St. George, one such sand ridge ran from the mouth of the Cooum to the present site of the Presidency College. On the rear side of the ridge was a huge depression on which the college grounds were later developed.
The ridge is the site of the present-day beach. When Fort St. George was built in 1640, the sea was too close to the fort. The building of the harbour near the fort resulted in sand accretion to the south of the fort and the harbour and the sea, which was washing the ramparts of the fort, moved afar at about 2.5 km away from the fort creating a wide beach between the land and the sea.
Before the Madras harbour was built, the beach was just a strip of mud, teeming with mudskippers. The beach washed up close to the present day road for a long time until the harbour was built in 1881. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, the governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886, who was captivated by the beach on an earlier visit to the city in the late 1870s, conceived and built the promenade along the beach in 1884 by extensively modifying and layering with soft sand. He also gave it the name Madras Marina in the same year.
Since the creation of the promenade in 1884, there were several additions along the stretch. The country's first aquarium was established as one of the first additions in 1909. Shortly after the Independence, the Triumph of Labour statue and the Gandhi statue in 'march to Dandi' stride, which has been duplicated on the lawns of the Parliament House, were erected on the beach.

Dakshina Chitra (a picture of the south) is a living-history museum in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, dedicated to South Indian heritage and culture. It is located 25 kilometres (16 mi) to the south of Chennai.
Opened to the public on 14 December 1996, the museum was founded and is being managed by the Madras Craft Foundation (MCF). The MCF was established in 1984. Deborah Thiagarajan, an Indian art historian of American origin, governs the museum.
The museum is built on 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land taken on a 33-year lease from the Government of Tamil Nadu. Developed as a heritage village, DakshinaChitra has an array of displays depicting the life pattern of Indians in the states of South India.
The exhibits portray the living beliefs of art, folk performing-arts, craft and architecture of India, in particular of South Indian traditions.

Sri Parthasarathy Temple is a 6th-century Hindu Vaishnavite temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu. The temple is glorified in the Naalayira Divya Prabandham, the early medieval Tamil literature canon of the Alvar saints from the 6th to 9th centuries CE and is classified as among the 108 Divya Desams.
The name 'Parthasarathy' means the 'charioteer of Arjuna', referring to Lord Krishna's role as a charioteer to Arjuna in the epic Mahabharata.
The Temple is one of the oldest structures in Chennai.There are shrines for Vedavalli Thayar, Ranganatha, Rama, Gajendra Varadar, Narasimha, Andal, Hanuman, Alvars, Ramanuja, Swami Manavala Mamunigal and Vedanthachariar. The temple subscribes to Vaikhanasa Agama and follows Tenkalai tradition.
Swami Vivekananda, an Indian Hindu monk was a devotee of Parthasarathy. In one of his letters in the year 1893 to his disciple Alasinga, he writes 'Take a bow before Parthasarathy of Thiruvallikeni and give an undertaking before Him of a great sacrifice, one of a whole life for the poor, the lowly and the oppressed – for whom Parthasarathy comes from time to time and whom he loves above all.' You can find this letter to his disciple inscribed in one of the walls at temple corridor.

Parangimalai (St. Thomas Mount) is a small hillock near the neighbourhood of Guindy and very close to Chennai International Airport. By extension, it is also the name of the neighbourhood surrounding the hillock.
According to Hindu tradition, sage Bhringi resided and meditated on the hillock in his quest to see Lord Shiva. The locality thus came to be known as Bhringi malai, or "the hill of Bhringi", which over time morphed into "Parangimalai". It is also said that this connects several other regions in the city with the origin of their names. For instance, the place where he laid his pitcher, known in Tamil as kindi while performing worship, has now come to be known as "Guindy".
The place is named St. Thomas Mount in English after Saint Thomas the Apostle, who lived and preached in the locality according to Christian tradition.

Fort St. George (or historically, White Town) is a fortress built in 1639. It was the first English fortress in India. The construction of the fort provided the impetus for further settlements and trading activity, in what was originally an uninhabited land. The city evolved around the fortress. The fort currently houses the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly and other official buildings.
St. Mary's Church, located inside the Fort is the oldest Anglican church in India. It was built between 1678 and 1680 on the orders of the then Agent of Madras Streynsham Master.
The tombstones in its graveyard are the oldest English or British tombstones in India.
This ancient prayer house solemnised the marriages of Robert Clive and Governor Elihu Yale, who later became the first benefactor of Yale University in the United States.

Thousand Lights Mosque is a multi-domed Mosque in Anna Salai in Chennai. It is one of the largest Mosques in the country and is a revered place of worship and azadari for Shia Muslims in the city.
The mosque was built in 1810 by Arcot Nawab Umdat ul-Umara. It was constructed in medieval architecture.
The site of the Mosque was previously occupied by an assembly hall. There was a tradition of lighting thousand oil lamps to illuminate the assembly hall. The Mosque thus gets its name from this tradition.
The Mosque has a library, a guest house, and the burial place of Imam Hossain (the grandson of Prophet Muhammad).
The chief Shia Qazi of Chennai functions from the mosque, and the post has been continuously held by the same family.

Shore Temple, Mahabalipuram (built in 700-728 AD) is so named because it overlooks the shore of the Bay of Bengal. It is a structural temple, built with blocks of granite, dating from the 8th century AD. At the time of its creation, the site was a busy port during the reign of Narasimhavarman II of the Pallava dynasty. As one of the Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram, it has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984. It is one of the oldest structural (versus rock-cut) stone temples of South India.
Shore temple is a complex of temples and shrines. This structural temple complex was the culmination of the architectural creations that were initiated by the King Narasimhavarman II in mid 7th century starting with the Cave temples and the monolithic Rathas.
Even though the architectural creation of sculpturing cut-in and cut-out structures continued during subsequent periods, as seen in the Atiranachanda cave, the Pidari rathas and the Tiger cave, the main credit for the architectural elegance of the Shore Temple complex in the category of structural temples goes to the King Rajasimha (700-728 AD), also known as Narasimhavarman II, of the Pallava Dynasty.
It is now inferred that this temple complex was the last in a series of temples that seemed to exist in the submerged coastline; this is supported by the appearance of an outline of its sister temples off the coast during the Tsunami of 2004 which struck this coastline. The architecture of the Shore Temple was continued by the Cholas (in the temples that they built) who ruled Tamil Nadu after defeating the Pallavas.

Kanchipuram also known as the City of Thousand Temples, is known for its temple architectures, 1000-pillared halls, huge temple towers and silk saris.
Kanchipuram is a Sanskrit word formed by combining two words "Kanchi" and "-puram" meaning "Brahma worship" and "residential place" respectively.
Historically, Kanchipuram was a centre of education[4] and was known as the ghatikasthanam, or "place of learning". The city was also a religious centre of advanced education for Jainism and Buddhism between the 1st and 5th centuries.
In the Vaishnavism Hindu theology, Kanchipuram is one of the seven Tirtha (pilgrimage) sites. The city houses Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Ekambareswarar Temple, Kamakshi Amman Temple, and Kumarakottam Temple which are some of major Hindu temples in the state. Of the 108 Divya Desams, 15 are located in Kanchipuram.
The city is most important to Sri Vaishnavism, Shaktism and then Shaivism. Most of the city's workforce is involved in the weaving industry.
Kanchipuram is the headquarters of the Kanchi Math, founded by the revered Hindu Saint Adi Sankaracharya.
In 2005, "Kanchipuram Silk Sarees" received the Geographical Indication tag, the first product in India to carry this label. The silk trade in Kanchipuram began when King Raja Raja Chola I (985–1014) invited weavers from Saurashtra, Gujarat to migrate to Kanchi. The craft increased with the mass migration of weavers from Andhra Pradesh in the 15th century during the Vijayanagara rule.

Auroville (City of Dawn French: Cité de l'aube) is an experimental township, mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, with some parts in the Union Territory of Pondicherry in India.
It was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa (known as "the Mother") and designed by architect Roger Anger.
The Auroville Foundation is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The HRD ministry appoints the seven members of the Governing Board and the five members of the International Advisory Council. There is also a Secretary to the Foundation, appointed by the Government of India, who resides and has an office with supporting staff in Auroville. The Foundation currently owns about half of the total land required for the township. The remaining lands are being purchased whenever funds are available.

Covelong (Kovlam) Beach is located on the coast of the Bay of Bengal near a village named Covelong, 40 km from Chennai. Kovalam Beach is on the way to Mahabalipuram near the East Coast Road.
Kovalam Beach is one of the finest and beautiful beaches by nature.
The village of Covelong, famous for its fishing activities draws many tourists.
Covelong beach is renowned for being the first surfing village of the country. Waves of Covelong Beach are gentle and calm, making it an ideal destination for surfers. There are surfing schools here.