Puducherry (union territory)
Union Territory of India
Puducherry (also known as Poudouchéry in French or historically as Pondicherry) is a union territory of India, consisting of four small geographically unconnected districts. It was formed out of four territories of former French India, namely Pondichéry (now Puducherry), Karikal (Karaikal), Mahé and Yanaon (now Yanam), excluding Chandannagar (Chandernagore), and it is named after the largest district, Puducherry, which was also the capital of French India. Historically known as Pondicherry, the territory changed its official name to Puducherry on 1 October 2006.
The Union Territory of Puducherry lies in the southern part of the Indian Peninsula. The areas of Puducherry district and Karaikal district are bound by the state of Tamil Nadu, while Yanam district and Mahé district are enclosed by the states of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, respectively. Puducherry is the 29th most populous of the 36 states and union territories of India, and the third most densely populated union territory. It has a gross domestic product (GDP) of ₹390 billion (US$4.0 billion) and ranks 25th in India.
Etymology
The name Puducherry is a compound of the Tamil words putu (புது) and cēri (சேரி) meaning 'new settlement'; its old name Pondicherry is a gallicised version of Pāṇḍi-cēri (பாண்டிச்சேரி) meaning 'settlement of Pandis'.
History
The earliest recorded history of the municipality of Puducherry can be traced to the second century CE. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions a marketplace named Poduke or Poduka (ch 60). G. W. B. Huntingford suggested this might be a site about 2 miles from the modern Puducherry, which was possibly the location of Arikamedu (now part of Ariyankuppam).
“Puducherry (union territory)” enters the record as union Territory of India. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Puducherry, union and territory can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q66743. Authority coordinates are 11.930, 79.830. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Puducherry (union territory)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.