Origin of Name
The city gets its name from the Malayalam word thiru-anantha-puram, meaning the "City of Lord Ananta". The name derives from the deity of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple at the centre of the city. Anantha is the serpent Shesha on whom Padmanabha or Vishnu reclines. This temple of Vishnu reclining on Anantha remains the iconic landmark of the city. It is estimated that the value of the monumental items and assets of the temple partially revealed are close to 100,000 crore (US$18.2 billion), making it the richest temple in the world. The city was officially referred to as Trivandrum until 1991, when the government decided to reinstate the city's original name Thiruvananthapuram.
Read more about this topic: Thiruvananthapuram
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