Virudhunagar District in the context of Kamarajar

Ramanathapuram district, also known as Ramnad district, is one of the 38 administrative districts of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The old Ramanathapuram District consists of present-day Virudhunagar and Sivagangai districts, it touches the Western Ghats and bordered with the state of Kerala and east by Bay of Bengal. It was the largest district on that time. The town of Ramanathapuram is the district headquarters. Ramanthapuram District has an area of 4,123 km. It is bounded on the north by Sivaganga District, on the northeast by Pudukkottai District, on the east by the Palk Strait, on the south by the Gulf of Mannar, on the west by Thoothukudi District, and on the northwest by Virudhunagar District. The district contains the Pamban Bridge, an east–west chain of low islands and shallow reefs that extend between India and the island nation of Sri Lanka, and separate the Palk Strait from the Gulf of Mannar. The Palk Strait is navigable only by shallow-draft vessels. As of 2011, Ramanathapuram district had a population of 1,353,445 with a sex-ratio of 983 females for every 1,000 males. The district is home to the pilgrimage centre of Rameswaram and tourist spot Dhanushkodi, an abandoned town.

Pandya Nadu or Pandi Nadu is a geographical region comprising the southern and south-western parts of the present day state of Tamil Nadu. The region is bounded on its West by the Venad/Ay Nadu, Northeast by the Chola Nadu and Northwest by the Kongu Nadu. It comprises the present-day districts of Madurai, Dindigul, Theni, Sivaganga, Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Thoothukudi, Kanniyakumari and parts of Pudukkottai.

The region was the principal historic seat of the Pandya dynasty who ruled it intermittently and with differing capacities at least from the 4th century BCE to 1759 CE. The political capital of the region is the city of Madurai with Korkai serving as a secondary capital and the principal port city during the early historic period.