Tirunelveli district is a district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The city of Tirunelveli is the district headquarters. Tirunelveli District was formed on 1 September 1790 by the East India Company (on behalf of the British government), and comprised the present Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts and parts of Virudhunagar district and Ramanathapuram districts. It is the second-largest district (as of October 2008), after Villupuram district. As of 2011, the district had a population of 3,077,233.