1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
India
Compare this sourced profile of Salem, 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 Salem—917,414, 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: Metropolis in Tamil Nadu, India.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Salem is GeoNames ID 1257629. Its recorded administrative path is Salem → Tamil Nadu → India, and GeoNames classifies the place as a populated place. Salem 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, Salem ranks 599 by recorded population. Inside the 109 selected India entries it ranks 62; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 349. Its 917,414 population value is 0.92 times the 1,001,694 median for the country cohort and 0.91 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Salem sits in the lower half of this atlas's selected India entries. Salem's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Salem's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Erode at 58.054 km with 521,891 recorded people; Kallakurichi at 87.982 km with 1,682,687 recorded people; Tiruppur at 105.848 km with 963,173 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 47.794 km. Compared with Erode, Salem's recorded population is 1.76 times as large. Against Salem, Erode follows Erode → 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 the same populated place class. Its recorded population is below Salem's. Against Salem, Kallakurichi follows Kallakurichi district → 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 second-order administrative seat rather than populated place. Its recorded population is above Salem's. Against Salem, Tiruppur follows Tiruppur → 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 the same populated place class. Its recorded population is above Salem's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 491 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Salem's nearest-coordinate gap sits in the second quarter 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 1257629, the coordinate pair 11.6538 / 78.1554, country rank 62 of 109, and neighbor GeoNames 1272013 at 58.054 km bind Salem to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Salem's reference point is 11.6538° north and 78.1554° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Kolkata is shared by 109 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPL is shared by 243 rows. Salem's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Salem's point falls in the near-equatorial coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Salem's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Salem, 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
Salem's closest other entries in this atlas are Erode (58.054 km), Kallakurichi (87.982 km), Tiruppur (105.848 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Salem, 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.