About Visakhapatnam
Visakhapatnam ( pronunciation (help•info), Telugu: విశాఖపట్టణం) (sometimes spelled as Vishakhapatnam and often abbreviated to Vizag) is a port city on the southeast coast of India and often called "The Jewel of the East Coast" . With a population of 2,035,690,[1] and occupying 681 square kilometres (263 sq mi),[2] it is the second largest city in the state of Andhra Pradesh and the third largest city on the east coast of India (after Chennai and Kolkata). Visakhapatnam is located 625 kilometres (388 mi) east of the state capital, Hyderabad. The city is home to severalstate-owned heavy industries and a steel plant; it is one of India's largest seaports and has the country's oldest shipyard. Visakhapatnam has the only natural harbour on the east coast of India.
It is nestled among the hills of the Eastern Ghats and faces the Bay of Bengal on the east. Visakhapatnam is the administrative headquarters ofVisakhapatnam district and headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command of the Indian Navy.
Language[edit source | editbeta]
Visakhapatnam is predominantly Telugu-speaking. The Telugu spoken by the middle class is the standard dialect, while a significant population who have settled down in the city from the adjoining villages and neighbouring districts of Vizianagaram and Srikakulam speak the Uttarandhra (north coastal) Mandalikam dialects while people from East Godavari speak the Godavari dialect.
Historians theorise that centuries ago (when Uttarandhra was part of the Kalinga Empire), Buddhist missionaries and merchants may have taken Telugu script (derived from Brahmi script) to Southeast Asia from the shores of Uttarandhra, where it evolved into the scripts of Mon, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Javanese,Balinese and possibly Sinhala (spoken in Sri Lanka). Their similarities to Telugu script can be discerned even today.
Visakhapatnam is home to small Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Nepali and Malayalee communities; their arrival is recent, due to the Naval presence and
It is nestled among the hills of the Eastern Ghats and faces the Bay of Bengal on the east. Visakhapatnam is the administrative headquarters ofVisakhapatnam district and headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command of the Indian Navy.
Language[edit source | editbeta]
Visakhapatnam is predominantly Telugu-speaking. The Telugu spoken by the middle class is the standard dialect, while a significant population who have settled down in the city from the adjoining villages and neighbouring districts of Vizianagaram and Srikakulam speak the Uttarandhra (north coastal) Mandalikam dialects while people from East Godavari speak the Godavari dialect.
Historians theorise that centuries ago (when Uttarandhra was part of the Kalinga Empire), Buddhist missionaries and merchants may have taken Telugu script (derived from Brahmi script) to Southeast Asia from the shores of Uttarandhra, where it evolved into the scripts of Mon, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Javanese,Balinese and possibly Sinhala (spoken in Sri Lanka). Their similarities to Telugu script can be discerned even today.
Visakhapatnam is home to small Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Nepali and Malayalee communities; their arrival is recent, due to the Naval presence and