The City of Chennai is widely referred to simply as the City (differentiated from the phrase "the

city of Chennai" by capitalising City) and is also colloquially known as the Expansion of the
district which took place in September 2018 aligned the district with the Greater Chennai
Corporation boundary, an increase from 178 square kilometres (69 sq mi) to 426 square
kilometres (164 sq mi).[1][3]in area. Both of these terms are also often used as metonyms for
the Chennai metropolitan area's trading and financial services industries, which continue a
notable history of being largely based in the City. The name Chennai is now ordinarily used for a
far wider area than just the City. Chennai most often denotes the sprawling Chennai metropolis,
or the 2 districts of Tamil Nadu, in addition to the City of Chennai itself. This wider usage of
Chennai is documented as far back as 1639, when the madras municipal corporation was
created.