page_title: Vedaranyam
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Vedaranyam / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Point Calimere Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary, Looking east from observation tower in the center of the sanctuary
context_page_description: Vedaranyam is a town in Nagapattinam district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The town is named after the presiding deity of the Vedaranyeswarar Temple. The recorded history of Vedaranyam is known from medieval Chola period of the 9th century and has been ruled, at different times, by the Medieval Cholas, Later Cholas, Later Pandyas, Vijayanagar Empire and the British. During India's independence struggle, C. Rajagopalachari, who would later become independent India's first Governor-General, launched a salt march in Vedaranyam parallel to the Dandi March launched by Gandhi in 1930 to protest against the sales tax levied on salt extraction.
  Vedaranyam comes under the Vedaranyam assembly constituency which elects a member to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly once every five years and it is a part of the Nagapattinam which elects its Member of Parliament once in five years. The town is administered by the Vedaranyam municipality, which covers an area of 36.26 km². As of 2011, the town had a population of 34,266. Vedaranyam was a part of Thanjavur District till 1991 and Nagapattinam District from then on.
context_section_description: Vedaranyam has an average elevation of 1 m (3.3 ft) and is located on the Coramandel coast of Bay of Bengal. The Vedaranyam swamp is located parallel to the Palk Strait for 48 km (30 mi). The river Cauvery was flowing south easterly direction from Trichy and had its confluence at Vedaranyam due to the emergence of Vedaranyam nose (the nose shaped stretch from Vedaranyam to Kodiyakarai) during the pleistocene period. Due to the rise of teritiary rocks in the Pattukottai – Mannargudi region and also due to the increase of sediments in the Vedaranyam area, the river migrated northwards. There is lesser marine activity in the Vedaranyam shore due to the presence of Vedaranyam nose in the north and Sri Lanka in the south, both causing weak shore currents.
  The quality of ground water is poor compared to the northern shores of Tamil Nadu due to the presence of marine and semi-marine origin in sediments. The images from the satellite IRS 1A shows Thiruthuraipoondi was a coastal town (which is an inland in modern times) and the sea has regressed up to Vedaranyam in modern times. The analysis of backwaters from 1932 to 1992 indicates considerable enlargement in the region and occurrence of number of sandbodies.
  Modern day Vedaranyam has five fresh water channels from river Cauvery draining into the swamp. The total area of the swamp is about 349 km² (135 sq mi), with 10 km (6.2 mi) width in the northwestern part and 6 km (3.7 mi) width in the western side. The Kodikarai wildlife reserve is located in the extreme eastern portion of the swamp. The northern tip of the swamp obtains continuous source of fresh, saline or brackish water during the south west monsoon and dries up during the summer season. The swamp is used for salt extraction and other marine based industries. The swamps are filled by two periodical high tides that occur during the full moon days of May and June. The swamp along with the sanctuary is the important wintering and staging area for waders and water birds.
caption: Kodikarai wildlife sanctuary is located in the eastern portion of the Great Vedaranyam Swamp which is connected to the Cauvery river by five freshwater channels.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-S650", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "314", "Image YResolution": "314", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2008:01:06 17:04:29", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "258", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-S650", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2008:01:06 17:04:29", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "14908", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7502", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:01:06 17:04:29", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:01:06 17:04:29", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "14700", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}