Kanyakumari

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Kanyakumari (also: Kanniyakumari, Tamil: கன்னியாகுமரி Kanniyakumari [ kan ː ː ˌ ija kuməɾi ] ) is a city in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located at Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of the Indian subcontinent.

The population is around 22,000 ( 2011 census ). Kanyakumari is eponymous for the district of Kanyakumari. But the administrative seat of the district is located 20 kilometers north Nagercoil. The nearest major city is Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the neighboring state of Kerala, 86 km away.

Due to its location at the southern tip of India Kanyakumari is an important Hindu pilgrimage destination, next to the site is visited, to a lesser extent, by foreign tourists. In 2011, Kanyakumari recorded a total of 7.3 million visitors. The main attraction for pilgrims is the located directly on Cape Comorin temple of the virgin goddess Kumari Amman. On the goddess the name refers Kanyakumari from which means " [ place of ] virgin princess ". At the temple located right on the ghats, devotees a ritual bath in the sea.

A few hundred meters off the coast of the cape are two small rocks. On the larger of the two is the Vivekananda Memorial, a memorial erected in 1970 for the Hindu philosopher Vivekananda, who spent meditating here in 1892 three days. On the other rocks, the 40.5 meter tall Thiruvalluvar statue was erected as a memorial for the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar, the author of the Tirukkural in 2000. The islands are accessible by boat.

A part of the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were scattered after his death in 1948 prior to Kanyakumari in the sea. At the place where Gandhi's ashes were in an urn, a monument to him is in the style of a orissanischen temple.

Kanyakumari is the terminus of National Highway 7, the longest Indian highway leading from the northern Indian Varanasi up to the southern tip of the subcontinent. The city also has its own train station at the end of a coming from Nagercoil side road. There are express trains towards Chennai and through Kerala to Mumbai.

The city is also Marian pilgrimage site in India with the very famous church of Our Lady of Ransom, which widely visible overlooks the village. The Christian community is called to go back to the Apostle Thomas, the missionary here in the 1st century, had the Asian missionary in Kanyakumari in the 16th century St. Francis Xavier.

The town was badly hit by the tsunami after the earthquake on 26 December 2004. Large parts of the lakeshore and the old town lying on the sea were destroyed.

Pictures

Vivekananda Memorial and Thiruvalluvar Statue

Pilgrims taking a bath in Kanyakumari