Coimbatore City, the second largest in the State, is the District Headquarters of Coimbatore District

It is 510 kms from the State Capital Chennai. This district is along the Western Ghats and the wind through the Palghat Gap makes this city to have a pleasant climate most part of the year. It was called as Kongunadu and now it is locally called Kovai in short. This was a village before earlier period ruled by the Tribal chieftans called Koyan or Kovan. Then followed the Karikala Cholan and after him it was ruled by the kings of Rashtrakudas, Chalukyas, Pandyas, Hoyasalas and Vijayanagar.

Victorian Era of the recent past converted this as an Industrial city beginning with Textile Mills. The presence of large number [more than 100] textile units makes this city be called as Manchester of the South. Apart from textiles, there are more than 25,000 small, medium and large Engineering Industries manufacturing Machine tools, Textile machineries, Automobile Spares, Electronics, Steel and Aluminum Foundries, Motors and other engineering products in this district. Two special SEZ [special economic zones] help this development too. Aviation spare parts industry too enters the industrial map of this city. The District has a population of 34,58,045 [census 2011]. The City populations records 10,61,447 [census 2011].

On the Tourism front, the popular Udhagamandalam [Ooty] hill Station tops the list, apart from other places of interests nearby.