Palamcottah

Tirunelveli Palayamkottai பாளையங்கோட்டை
city
Vannarpettai bypass flyover
Tirunelveli Location in Tamil Nadu, India
Coordinates: 8°43′00″N 77°44′00″E / 8.7166°N 77.7333°E / 8.7166; 77.7333Coordinates: 8°43′00″N 77°44′00″E / 8.7166°N 77.7333°E / 8.7166; 77.7333
Country	India
State	Tamil Nadu
District	Tirunelveli
Languages
• Official	Tamil
Time zone	IST (UTC+5:30)
Pincode	627002
Vehicle registration	TN 72

Palayamkottai (Palamcottah Tamil: பாளையங்கோட்டை  pronunciation ), known as the "Oxford of South India", is a town in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. It is part of the Tirunelveli city corporation. It is on the eastern bank of the Thamirabarani river, while its twin city Tirunelveli is on the western bank.

The archaic word Palayamkottai in Tamil means a small administrative region or district. A Kottai is a fort. The portmanteau Tamil word Palayamkottai was hence derived historically from an ancient fort that was in the centre of the region. Today, the fort lies in ruins and is almost camouflaged by its surrounding old residential edifices. To anyone who reads about Palayamkottai for the first time, it may be surprising to see that atlases and other books refer to the city with both, an M or an N (Palayamkottai or Palayankottai). This uncertainty is because the actual Tamil word for the city uses an alphabet that is phonetically between M and N, and sometimes even completely substituted by G (pronounced Palayangkottai in colloquial Tamil). Natively speaking, it is hence correctly pronounced as Palayamnkottai. Historically during the British Raj, the area was referred to as Palancottah and also Palamkottah. The anglicization of the word was dropped by the locals immediately after independence, and the city is now called both Palayankottai and Palayamkottai according to official government documents and records. For disambiguation, the city is referred to as Palayamkottai in this article.