CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Archives and Historical Research department has released reprints of district manuals that East India Company published after acquiring the territory in the south since 1868.
The district gazetteer or manual is considered an encyclopaedia of the district with information on geographical and human resources and linguistic peculiarities of that time. According to the department, the district manuals are sought after by researchers and historians for its exhaustive local information.
The district manuals of Madurai, South Arcot, Tiruchirapalli, Chengalpattu and Coimbatore in Madras presidency that were printed in 1868 to 1887, district gazetteer of South Arcot, Tiruchirapalli and The Nilgiris that were printed from 1906 to 1908 and post-independence district gazetteers of Tamil Nadu for Coimbatore, Salem, Pudukkottai, Dharmapuri, Kanniyakumari and two volumes of Tirunelveli have been released.