Madras Presidency: Administrative unit in British India

At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the whole of the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and parts of Odisha, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, and the union territory of Lakshadweep. The city of Madras was the winter capital of the Presidency and Ootacamund or Ooty, the summer capital. The island of Ceylon was a part of Madras Presidency from 1793 to 1798 when it was created a Crown colony.

In the early decades of the 20th century, many significant contributors to the Indian independence movement came from Madras. After India got its independence Madras Prescidency became Madras State and later renamed as Tamil Nadu during C.N.Annadurai's reign as the chief minister.

In 1822, the Madras Presidency underwent its first census, which returned a population of 13,476,923.The last census of British India held in 1941 counted a population of 49,341,810 for the Madras Presidency.According to the 1871 census, there were 14,715,000 people who spoke Tamil, 11,610,000 people who spoke Telugu, 2,324,000 people who spoke Malayalam, 1,699,000 spoke Canarese or Kannada, 640,000 people spoke Oriya and 29,400 people spoke Tulu.