Madurai is a city and a municipal corporation situated on the banks of River Vaigai in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu in Indian. Madurai is the headquarters of Madurai district. It is the third largest city of Tamil Nadu and has a population more than 1.1 million. It is well known for the Meenakshi temple in the heart of the town which attracts tourists as well as pilgrims.

     Madurai has a rich cultural heritage passed on from the great Tamil era more than 2500 years old, and has been an important commercial centre even as early as 550 AD. Madurai was the capital city of the Pandya kings of South India. The Pandya King Kulasekaran built a temple, which would later be known as the Meenakshi Temple, and created a lotus shaped city around the temple. On the day the city was to be named, Lord Shiva blessed the land and its people, divine nectar was showered on the city from his matted locks. This city was henceforth known as Madhurapuri, meaning "The Land of Divine Nectar". According to another view the name Madurai is actually a transformation of the Tamil word "Marudhai", which means a fertile agricultural land with alluvial soil.

     The city has been called the "Athens of the East" because of its great architecture and meticulous planning, comparable to that of the Greek capital. Madurai is one of India's oldest cities, with a history dating back to the Sangam period of the pre-Christian era. It was home to the ancient Tamil Sangam, the literary conclave that produced the first Tamil epic Silappathikaaram and other masterpieces of Tamil literature. Megasthenes, the ancient Greek diplomat and envoy to India in 3rd century BC, had written in glowing terms about it in Indica, his celebrated account on India. But the city flourished under Pandya rule in the 13th century when it was a major trading hub with trading contacts with Greece, Rome, and Middle Eastern countries. The Pandyas were the ones that made the city their capital, and built the Meenakshi Amman Temple, which has always been the greatest attraction of the city.

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