Stone age implements have been found near Pallavaram in Chennai.

According to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Pallavaram was

a megalithic cultural establishment, and pre-historic communities
resided in the settlement.[50]

The region around Chennai has served as an important administrative,

military, and economic centre for many centuries. During the 1st
century CE, a poet and weaver named Thiruvalluvar lived in the town
of Mylapore (a neighbourhood of present Chennai).[51] From the 1st–12th
century the region of present Tamil Nadu and parts of South India was
ruled by the Cholas.[52]

The Pallavas of Kanchi built the areas of Mahabalipuram and

Pallavaram during the reign of Mahendravarman I. They also defeated
several kingdoms including the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas who ruled
over the area before their arrival. Sculpted caves and paintings have
been identified from that period.[53] Ancient coins dating to around 500
BC have also been unearthed from the city and its surrounding areas. A
portion of these findings belonged to the Vijayanagara Empire, which
ruled the region during the medieval period.[54]

The Portuguese first arrived in 1522 and built a port called São

Tomé after the Christian apostle, St. Thomas, who is believed to have
preached in the area between 52 and 70 CE. In 1612,
the Dutch established themselves near Pulicat, north of Chennai.[55]

On 20 August 1639 Francis Day of the East India Company along with

the Nayak of Kalahasti Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, travelled to
the Chandragiri palace for an audience with the Vijayanager
Emperor Peda Venkata Raya.[56] Day was seeking to obtain a grant for
land on the Coromandel coast on which the Company could build a
factory and warehouse for their trading activities. He was successful in
obtaining the lease of a strip of land about 10 kilometres (6 mi) long and
1.6 km (1 mi) inland in return for a yearly sum of five
hundred lakh pagodas.[57][58][59] On 22 August, he secured the land grant
from local Nayak (Damarla Venkatadri Nayaka and his younger
brother Aiyappa Nayaka of Poonamallee).[60][61] The region was then
formerly a fishing village known as "Madraspatnam". [54] A year later,
the Company built Fort St. George, the first major English settlement in
India,[62] which became the nucleus of the growing colonial city and
urban Chennai, grew around this Fort. [63] Post independence the fort
housed the Tamil Nadu Assembly until the new Secretariat building was
opened in 2010, but shortly afterwards it was again moved back to Fort
St. George, due to a change in the Government.[64]

In 1746, Fort St. George and Madras were captured by the French under
General La Bourdonnais, the Governor of Mauritius, who plundered the
town and its outlying villages.[55] The British regained control in 1749
through the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and strengthened the town's
fortress wall to withstand further attacks from the French and Hyder
Ali, the Sultan of Mysore.[65] They resisted a French siege attempt in 1759
under the leadership of Eyre Coote.[66] In 1769 the city was threatened by
Mysore and the British were defeated by Hyder Ali, after which
the Treaty of Madras ended the war.[67] By the 18th century, the British
had conquered most of the region around Tamil Nadu and the northern
modern–day states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, establishing
the Madras Presidency with Madras as the capital