Puththalam is a

Panchayat town A nagar panchayat () or town panchayat or Notified Area Council (NAC) in India is a settlement in transition from rural to urban and therefore a form of an urban political unit comparable to a municipality. An urban centre with more than 12,00 ...

in the

Agastheeswaram taluk Agasteeswaram taluk is a taluk located in Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, India. The headquarters of the taluk is the town of Nagercoil. The taluk was among several in Thiruvananthapuram district that with the passage of the States Reorganisa ...

, Kanniyakumari district in the

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. It lies between the Manakudy estuary and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. The estuary is famous for its biodiversity and

migrating birds Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

. The wildlife department has recently introduced mangrove plantations. Puthalam is also known for its salt pans, which have existed since the British colonial rule. The recent tsunami has devastated the surrounding fishing villages. It has a 200-year-old Christian church constructed by Ringel Taube, a German missionary. There is also a 200-year-old higher secondary school, L.M.P.C. Higher Secondary School.

Demographics

As of the 2011 India

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, Puththalam has a population of 13,073. Puthalam has an average

literacy rate Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

of 83.7%, higher than the state literacy rate of 80.1% (male literacy is 86.1%, and female literacy is 81.5%). About 10% of the population is under the age of six.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puthalam Cities and towns in Kanyakumari district

2011 Census