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Thiruvananthapuram
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Thiruvananthapuram,city, capital ofKerala state, southwesternIndia. It is situated along theArabian Sea with isolated hills on a coastal plain.
Thecommunity became prominent under Raja Martanda Varma, who made it the capital of his kingdom ofTravancore in 1745. The city’s former name, Trivandrum, was given by the British and is a contraction of Thiruvananthapuram, its name during the Travancore kingdom that was adopted again in 1991.
Thiruvananthapuram’s industries includemineral processing, sugar milling, textiles, and handicrafts. Rice and coconut cultivation and coastal fishing are economically important. Thiruvananthapuram is a rail terminus and road hub and has an airport and a harbor. It is the site of theUniversity of Kerala (1937) and itsaffiliated colleges and technical schools. It also has a museum, zoological gardens, an observatory, and an art gallery. A large fort contains several palaces and thePadmanabhaswamy Temple which is dedicated to the Hindu godVishnu and is a noted pilgrimage center. The city gets its name from the temple—it is considered the town orabode (puram) of the Lord (thiru) Ananta (“endless”), a name of Vishnu and, more commonly, the name of the serpent Shesha on whom Vishnu rests. Pop. (2001) city, 744,983; urban agglom., 889,635; (2011) city, 743,691; urban agglom., 1,679,754.
