Palayamkottai

"If the boundary of the town is made with stone, it will not be of aesthetic beauty and   therefore boundary is fenced with paddy field" , says a Tamil Poet about Tiru-nel-veli.  The town has been surrounded on all sides by paddy fields.  As such the town was called as 'Nelveli' i.e., Paddy-Hedge.  Since the temple in the town is dedicated to Lord 'Siva', the town around the temple was called Tiru-nel-veli.  Around 1560, the town was rebuilt by Viswanatha, the founder of Nayak dynasty who also erected many temples in it.  Tirunelveli was the earliest Pandiya's Capital.  The Nayaks ruled Tirunelveli from Madurai during the 16th, 17th and early years of 18th Century.          Tirunelveli is situated on the west bank of Thamiraparani River and Palayamkottai on the east bank.  Palayamkottai, being the administrative head quarters with the establishment of educational  institutions and of various industries, public and semi public offices, exhibits a remarkable development.  Palayamkottai was fortified under the native rulers and its defenses were intact at the time when it was passed into the hands of the British. It subsequently followed the base of their operations during the poliger wars.  The fort was dismantled till the garrison of one or more native regiments which had been stationed here ever since the British occupation in this place was finally withdrawn.

  The little city also has a Government Museum with a huge and realistic fibreglass Tyrannosaurus rex which is very popular among the young people of Palayamkottai. The museum houses a small collection of ancient artifacts found in the areas surrounding the city. Some of its literary collections include ancient Tamil inscriptions in palm leaves. Although the museum is well known locally, it is rarely crowded and somewhat badly maintained.

Palayamkottai also has one of the most popular Science Centres in South India, a satellite unit of Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Bangalore. Since the Science Centre lies between Palayamkottai and Tirunelveli (the twin cities) and as it is difficult to mark a border between the two, it is often called as the Tirunelveli District Science Centre (by the district's name). It is a popular hangout area for young people, and is frequently visited by teams of school students to explore and learn the principles of science through the centre's interesting outdoor equipment and experiments.

In the outskirts of Palayamkottai near Krishnapuram on the Tirunelveli-Tiruchendur State Highway, one of the premier research organizations of the country, the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG), whose Headquarters is at Navi Mumbai, operates its regional centre, the Equatorial Geophysical Research Laboratory (EGRL). IIG is fully supported and funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and functions as an autonomous research institute. The equatorial observatory of IIG located near Tirunelveli pursues state-of-the-art research in the areas of geomagnetism and atmospheric and space sciences with well-equipped library and excellent infrastructure for research. With its state-of-the-art instruments, the centre finds a prominent place in the global networks of geomagnetic observatories and atmospheric radars.