Chennai travel guide

Top 10 sights in Chennai

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© w:user:PlaneMad · CC BY-SA 2.5

   San Thome Basilica

   Built over what is held to be the tomb of the apostle Thomas — one of only three churches in the world raised over an apostle's grave. The Portuguese built the first in 1523 and the British replaced it with this neo-Gothic one in 1896; the tomb chapel is below the nave.

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   Fort St. George

   The first English fortress in India, begun in 1644, around which Madras grew. Its walls now hold the Tamil Nadu legislature, and St Mary's inside it, from 1680, is the oldest Anglican church east of Suez.

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   3© This Image was created by User:PlaneMad. If you are using the image under the cr · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Marina Beach

   Thirteen kilometres of sand along the Bay of Bengal, the longest urban beach in India. Swimming is forbidden — the undertow is severe — so it is a promenade rather than a bathing beach. The 2004 tsunami came ashore here and killed several hundred.

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   4© This Image was created by User:PlaneMad. If you are using the image under the cr · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Adyar

   A large district in south Chennai on the river of the same name, and one of the city's more expensive. The Theosophical Society's headquarters here keeps a banyan tree several centuries old in its grounds.

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   5© abhidg · CC BY 2.0

   Guindy National Park

   Two point seven square kilometres of scrub forest inside the city, and one of very few national parks anywhere within a metropolis. Blackbuck and spotted deer graze in it, there is a snake park at the gate, and the president's residence takes up part of the same enclave.

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   6© Jaisakthivel unom · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Kapaleeshwarar Temple

   The Shiva temple of Mylapore, founded perhaps in the seventh century, destroyed by the Portuguese and rebuilt on this site in the sixteenth. Its gopuram rises thirty-seven metres over the tank. The Arupathimoovar festival in March or April carries sixty-three bronze saints through the streets.

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   Perungudi

   A district on the road south out of Chennai that filled with software offices from the 1990s. Beside it lies the Pallikaranai marsh, one of the last freshwater wetlands left in the city and now protected.

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   Injambakkam

   A coastal district in southern Chennai facing the Bay of Bengal. Villas and resorts line the East Coast Road, with fishing villages surviving in between.

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   9© BenoitL · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Mylapore

   The oldest quarter of Chennai, a port trading with Rome before the British arrived and named for the peacocks. The Kapaleeshwarar temple and its tank, the San Thome basilica and a Sanskrit college stand within a few streets, and Tamil tradition places the poet Thiruvalluvar here.

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10. 

    10© Silvarius Celso · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Nandambakkam

    A district in the southwest of Chennai. Its trade fair grounds and international exhibition centre fill it during the show season, and the Adyar river forms the boundary alongside.

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1. 

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   Parthasarathy Temple

   A Vishnu temple at Triplicane founded by the Pallavas in the eighth century, and among the oldest buildings in Chennai. It is praised in the Tamil hymns of the Alvars and is one of the hundred and eight sacred Vaishnava sites.

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   2© Mohan Krishnan (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Marundeeswarar Temple

   A Shiva temple at Thiruvanmiyur close to the beach, praised in seventh-century Tamil hymns and much enlarged by the Chola kings. Its tank and colonnades sit in the middle of a residential district.

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   3© Timothy A. Gonsalves · CC BY-SA 4.0

   St. Thomas Mount

   A hillock near the airport where the apostle Thomas is held to have been killed about AD 72. The Portuguese built the church on top in 1523; inside is a cross said to have been carved by Thomas himself, and the terrace looks over the runways.

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   Government Museum, Chennai

   A museum founded in 1851, the second oldest in India, at Egmore. Its collection of Chola bronzes is the finest anywhere, and the Amaravati sculptures beside them are among the earliest Buddhist carving in the south.

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   5© Rasnaboy · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Kalikambal Temple

   A temple to Kaligambal and Kamadeswarar in George Town, in the middle of the wholesale market district. Shivaji is said to have worshipped here in 1677, and the temple was moved to this site under Dutch pressure.

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   6© No machine-readable author provided. Ganeshk assumed (based on copyright claims) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   T. Nagar

   A busy commercial district of Chennai. Jewellery, clothing, footwear and household shops line Ranganathan Street, Usman Road and Pondy Bazaar, which makes it one of the most crowded quarters in Asia; it was created in the 1920s Mambalam plan by filling in a tank.

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   Kodambakkam

   The district of Chennai where the Tamil film studios are, and the reason the industry is called Kollywood. It produces a larger number of films most years than any other centre in India.

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   8© KARTY JazZ · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Edward Elliot's Beach

   A beach at Besant Nagar at the southern end of the Marina, quieter than the main strand and known locally as the Bessie. A memorial on it remembers a Dutch sailor who drowned saving a swimmer in 1930.

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   9© L.vivian.richard at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Vadapalani Andavar Temple

   A temple to Murugan at Vadapalani, rebuilt in the 1920s with a tall painted gateway. It is the favoured temple of the film industry for weddings, which makes its calendar hard to book.

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    10© Bharathmeister · CC BY 3.0

    Thiruvanmiyur

    A residential district in the south of Chennai that grew quickly when the city's first dedicated software park opened next door at Taramani. An old Shiva temple and a long beach anchor its two ends.

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