1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
India
Compare this sourced profile of Pondicherry, India before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Pondicherry—657,209, Asia/Kolkata, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: city in the Union Territory of Puducherry, India.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Pondicherry is GeoNames ID 1259425. Its recorded administrative path is Puducherry → India, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Puducherry occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2024-01-06; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Pondicherry ranks 843 by recorded population. Inside the 109 selected India entries it ranks 77; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 468. Its 657,209 population value is 0.66 times the 1,001,694 median for the country cohort and 0.65 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Pondicherry sits in the lower half of this atlas's selected India entries. Pondicherry's recorded value is materially below the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Pondicherry's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Kallakurichi at 97.318 km with 1,682,687 recorded people; Vellore at 133.111 km with 484,690 recorded people; Chennai at 137.255 km with 4,681,087 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 39.937 km. Compared with Kallakurichi, Pondicherry's recorded population is 0.39 times as large. Against Pondicherry, Kallakurichi follows Kallakurichi district → Tamil Nadu → India in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected India cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kolkata identifier, and carries second-order administrative seat rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Pondicherry's. Against Pondicherry, Vellore follows Vellore → Tamil Nadu → India in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected India cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kolkata identifier, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Pondicherry's. Against Pondicherry, Chennai follows Chennai → Tamil Nadu → India in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected India cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kolkata identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is above Pondicherry's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 686 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Pondicherry's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1259425, the coordinate pair 11.9338 / 79.8298, country rank 77 of 109, and neighbor GeoNames 12165956 at 97.318 km bind Pondicherry to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Pondicherry's reference point is 11.9338° north and 79.8298° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Kolkata is shared by 109 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Pondicherry's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Pondicherry's point falls in the near-equatorial coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Pondicherry's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Pondicherry, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Pondicherry's closest other entries in this atlas are Kallakurichi (97.318 km), Vellore (133.111 km), Chennai (137.255 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Pondicherry, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2024-01-06; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.