State of Andhra Pradesh, India — Towns & Travel Guide

What is State of Andhra Pradesh known for?

The Godavari and the Krishna spill out of the Eastern Ghats and fan into wide alluvial deltas, feeding one of the most productive farming belts in southern India. Along the Bay of Bengal sits Visakhapatnam, the largest city and a working port hemmed between the hills and the sea. Inland, pilgrims climb the Tirumala hills above Tirupati to the Venkateswara temple, among the busiest Hindu shrines anywhere.

Telugu is the language of it all.

Where is State of Andhra Pradesh?

Andhra Pradesh lies on the southeastern coast of India, its long eastern edge tracing the Bay of Bengal. The state falls into three bands running roughly parallel to that shore. Nearest the sea is a fertile coastal plain, broadest where the Godavari and the Krishna break out of the highlands and build their deltas across the alluvium.

Behind the plain rise the Eastern Ghats, a broken chain of forested ranges that separates the shore from the interior. Beyond the Ghats, in the southwest, spreads the drier upland of Rayalaseema. The coastline is long.

It runs for hundreds of kilometres, the second-longest of any Indian state, and along it the two big rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal after crossing the plain. Odisha borders the state to the northeast, and Telangana sits inland to the northwest, carved out of the same Telugu-speaking country in 2014. Tamil Nadu lies to the south and Karnataka to the west, wrapping the Rayalaseema plateau.

Visakhapatnam holds the northern coast, Vijayawada commands the Krishna delta at the centre, and Tirupati stands near the southern hills. The rivers and the Ghats set the shape of everything.

What is State of Andhra Pradesh like?

Telugu binds the state together, the tongue of the Andhra people who have lived along these rivers since antiquity. The very word may descend from an old name for the Godavari. From the village of Kuchipudi, in the Krishna delta, comes the classical dance that carries the village's name and stands as the state's own.

Its steps and its stories are Telugu to the core. The Amaravati school of Buddhist sculpture rose on the banks of the Krishna centuries ago and sent its style across South and Southeast Asia. Food here runs hot and sour.

Cooks lean on chillies and tamarind, and the Guntur chilli gives Andhra cooking a bite known across India. The Banganapalle mango and the sweet Tirupati laddu both carry protected geographical status, tied by law to the soil that makes them. Faith shapes the calendar most of all.

Pilgrims climb in their millions to the Venkateswara temple above Tirupati, while the Kanaka Durga temple looks down on Vijayawada from a hill beside the Krishna. Old and devout, the culture is stitched to the land it grew from.

What is the history of State of Andhra Pradesh?

The Andhra people are old, and their power once ran wide: the Satavahana dynasty ruled much of the Deccan from bases like Amaravati on the Krishna nearly two thousand years ago. The modern state was born of language. In 1952 Potti Sreeramulu fasted to death demanding a Telugu-speaking state, and Andhra State was cut from the old Madras Presidency the next year.

On the first of November 1956 it merged with the Telugu districts of Hyderabad State to form Andhra Pradesh, the first Indian state drawn on linguistic lines. Telangana split away again in 2014, and a new capital began to rise at Amaravati.

What is the climate of State of Andhra Pradesh?

The climate is tropical. For much of the year the coast stays hot and humid, and rain waits on the southwest monsoon that sweeps in from June into September. Those months green the deltas and fill the rivers.

The Bay of Bengal turns dangerous in October and November, when cyclones spin up over the warm water and drive ashore across the low coastal plain. The Eastern Ghats break that heat. High in the northern hills, Lambasingi sees a chill unusual for this stretch of India.

Winter is the kind season.

How do you get to State of Andhra Pradesh?

Most long-haul arrivals fly. Visakhapatnam carries the busiest airport on the coast, with Vijayawada and Tirupati handling their own flights for the delta and the pilgrim south. The state sits astride the main rail and road corridor that runs down India's eastern seaboard, so trains from Chennai and the north stop through Vijayawada and the delta towns.

Visakhapatnam is also a deep-water port on the Bay of Bengal. Once inside, road and rail thread the coastal plain and climb west into the Eastern Ghats.