1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ootacamund

OOTACAMUND, or Utakamand, a town of British India, headquarters of the Nilgiris district in Madras, approached by a rack railway from the Mettapolliem station on the Madras railway. Pop. (1901) 18,596. It is the principal sanatorium of southern India, and summer headquarters of the Madras government. It is placed on a plateau about 7230 ft. above the sea, with a fine artificial lake, and mountains rising above 8000 ft. The mean annual temperature is 58° F., with a minimum of 38° in January and a maximum of 76° in May; average annual rainfall, 49 in. The houses are scattered on the hillsides amid luxuriant gardens, and there are extensive carriage drives. In the neighbourhood are plantations of coffee, tea and cinchona. There are a brewery and two dairy farms. The Lawrence asylum for the children of European soldiers was founded in 1858, and there are also the Breeks memorial and Basel Mission high schools.

See Sir F. Price, Ootacamund: A History (Madras, 1908).