Thurakapalem is a village located in

Muppalla Muppalla (Muppalla) is a village palnadu district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located in Muppalla village ipur mondal of Guntur revenue division. Geography Varagani is situated at . It is spread over an area of . Governan ...

Mandal A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...

Guntur Guntur () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Guntur district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Guntur is spread across 168.49 km square and is the third-largest city in the state. It is situated to the west of the Ba ...

district in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India This village comes under the jurisdiction of Sattenapalli Assembly Constituency and Narasaraopet Parliamentary Constituency.

History

Thurakapalem was founded around 1840. Many families left Gandikota to escape Muslim aggression in that region, and settled in

district. These families, called Gandikota Kammas, originally practiced Hinduism, but converted to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

50 years later with the arrival of the Irish ( Mill Hill) missionaries to the

district around 1890.

Geography

Thurakapalem is located at . It has an average elevation of 59 meters (302 ft) above sea level and is situated in the plains. It covers an area of approximately 800 acres and is located approximately 62 miles (100 km) to the west of the Bay of Bengal. This area considered rich with fertile, arable land irrigated by canals. The type of soil is predominantly black cotton soil known as "nalla regadi boomi" in Telugu. Thurakapalem village overview

The area generally has a warm, dry climate with extremely hot summers. The year may be divided into four climatic seasons: a dry and cool winter season (December to February), the summer season (March to May), the southwest monsoon season (June to September), and the post-monsoon, or retreating monsoon season (October to November). The temperature reaches 48 °C (118 °F) in the summer, falling to 18.6 °C (65.5 °F) in the winter. The yearly average temperature is 27 °C (81 °F). Storms and depressions originating in the Bay of Bengal cross the district from the east. These cause widespread and very heavy rains and strong winds, mainly during the seasons of the southwest monsoon and the retreating monsoon. October is the wettest month of the year.

Demography

The population of Thurakapalem (as of the 2011 India census) is 1,400. The main religion practiced is Roman Catholicism, with a few Hindus also residing in the village. Males and females each constitute approximately 50 per cent of the population. The village has an average literacy rate of 99 percent, with male literacy at 99 percent and female literacy at 96 percent. Ten percent of the population of Thurakapalem is under six years of age.. Several residents of the village migrated to towns and cities and also settled abroad.

Culture

The spoken language of Thurakapalem is Telugu. The traditional clothing consists of sari for women and pancha, lungi, or uttariya for men. Until 1940, Thurkapalem, as a part of the Guntur District, fell under the Catholic Diocese of Nellore. On 23 February 1940, Guntur split from the Diocese of Nellore and became a diocese in its own right, the Diocese of Guntur, led by its first bishop, Thomas Pothacamury.

References

External links

{{commons category * http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=16.328706&lon=80.065398&z=15&m=b&show=/9510336/Thurakapalem Villages in Guntur district