Nagapattinam district is one of the 38 districts (a coastal district) of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. Nagapattinam district was carved out by bifurcating the erstwhile composite Thanjavur district on 19 October 1991. The town of Nagapattinam is the district headquarters. As of 2011, the district had a population of 697,069 with a sex-ratio of 1,025 females for every 1,000 males. Until Mayiladuthurai district was created out of it on 24 March 2020, Nagapattinam was the only discontiguous district in Tamil Nadu. Etymology Nagapattinam is derived from Nagar, referring to people, and pattinam referring to town. In Tamil Pattinam and paakkam depicts coastal towns. The town was also called Cholakula Vallipattinam during the Chola period, when it was one of the important ports. Ptolemy refers to Nagapattinam as Nikam and mentions it as one of the most important trade centres of the ancient Tamil country. This view is doubtful as there is no contemporary evidence to prove the existence of the town as a metropolis in the name of "Nikama" or "Nikam". Nagapattinam was referred to by early writers and the Portuguese as "the city of Coromandel". Appar and Tirugnanasambandar, the 7th-century saint poets refer to the city as Nagai in their verses in Tevaram. The town was originally called "Nagai"; the word Pattinam was attached during the Chola era when the town emerged as an important port. History Nagapattinam district was an important region of the Chola kingdom. There are urn burials in and around the city from the Sangam period indicating some level of human habitation. The neighbouring port, Kaveripoompattinam (modern day Poompuhar), was the capital of the Chola kingdom of the Sangam Age, referred to widely in Tamil scriptures like Paṭṭiṉappālai. The early works of Tevaram by the 7th-century poets Appar and Sambandar mention that the town had fortified walls, busy roads, buildings and a busy port. The inscriptions from the Kayarohanswami temple indicate the construction was initiated during the reign of the Pallava king, Narasimha Pallava II (691 – 729 CE). A Buddhist pagoda was built under Chinese influence by the Pallava king and town was frequented by Buddhist travellers. Thirumangai Alvar, the 9th-century Vaishnavite saint poet, is believed to have stolen the golden Buddha statue to fund the Ranganthaswamy Temple at Srirangam; the authenticity of the theory is questionable. In the 11th century CE, Chudamani Vihara, a Buddhist monastery was built by Javanese king