Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu in India, and is the country's fourth-largest city. It is located on the Coromandel coast of the Bay of Bengal. With an estimated population of 7.45 million (2005), the 367 year old city is the 34th largest metropolitan area in the world. Under the British, the then city of Madras grew to be a major city, It was the capital of the Madras presidency, a province that covered the parts of Southern India that were not governed by any of the other princely states. After independence, it became the capital of Madras state, and when the states were reorganized on a linguistic basis, it narrowly escaped becoming the capital of Andhra Pradesh and became the capital of Tamil Nadu. Chennai, being the capital of Tamil Nadu, is home to a host of Tamil culture art forms including dance, literature, sculpture, music and cinema. The season for Bharatnatyam and Carnatic Music draws visitors and aficionados from the world over. Being the capital of Tamil Nadu, the preferred language of communication amongst the local population is Tamil. However, English is widely spoken as the language of commerce and hence visitors should have no problem getting around. The city also has a fair number of people that speak Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. Chennai, being the capital of Tamil Nadu, is home to a host of Tamil culture art forms including dance, literature, sculpture, music and cinema. Chennai has mainly two seasons - summer and monsoon. It does not enjoy the south-west monsoon, but gets its bountiful rains from the north-east monsoon from October through December, thus amounting to about 125-150 cm of rainfall annually. December to February are the mildest months temperature-wise. Climate is humid pretty much throughout the year because the city is on the coast. Summers are very hot and humid. http://wikitravel.org/en/Chennai