Ooty

D1

Udagamandalam (also Udhagamandalam, Tamil: உதகமண்டலம் Utakamaṇṭalam [ uðəɡəmaɳɖəlʌm ] ), formerly anglicised Ootacamund, Ooty short, is a mountain village in the Nilgiribergen, an offshoot of the Western Ghats, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It has about 95,000 inhabitants and is situated at an altitude of 2,250 meters.

Udagamandalam was "discovered " by John Sullivan, a former secretary of the British East India Company in the early 19th century. Sullivan recognized the agricultural potential of the area ( cool climate, green fertile hills ), bought land and began flax, hemp, potatoes, fruit and especially tea grow; within 20 years, he made ​​a fortune.

Sullivan and his business partners built the city with an artificial lake, churches and stone buildings that could be also in the Scottish Highlands, and made them in no time become the most popular mountain resort in the Indian peninsula. Udagamandalam was then used as a summer residence of the colonial administration of Madras.

Originally, the area around Udagamandalam homeland of the Todas, a hill tribe of shepherds that lived in almost complete isolation from the surrounding cities of the plains. The Todas were proselytized or persecuted and repressed by tea planters from their land.

Until the 1970s lived the last British residents in India " Ooty ".

Railway connection

By the terminus of the Nilgiri Mountain Railway Udagamandalam is connected to the Indian railway network.

Personalities

• Jerry Dammers, keyboardist