The first general survey in 80 years of the geography and anthropology of the Nilgiris district of south India, this book makes a unique contribution to the growing literature on this region. The contributors, from a variety of disciplines, offer fourteen original studies including the first overview of Nilgir languages, the most recent account of the Kotas, the first archaeological survey of the region since 1873, a detailed biogeographical overview in an anthropological account of south India, and the first sociolinguistic study of a south Indian town.