Notable tourist spots include its unique sunrise and sunset points, the 41-metre (133 ft) Thiruvalluvar Statue, and Vivekananda Rock Memorial off the coast.

[4] Lying at the tip of peninsular India, the town is bordered on the west, south, and east by the Laccadive Sea.

[7] Kanyakumari has been a town since the Sangam period and was referred to in old Malayalam literature and in the accounts of Ptolemy and Marco Polo.

[10][11] According to a Hindu legend, Kanya Devi, an avatar of Parvati, was to marry Shiva, who failed to show up on his wedding day.

Kanya Devi is now considered a virgin goddess who blesses pilgrims and tourists who flock to the town.

The fallen earth formed an area called Marunthuvazh Malai, literally "hills where medicine lives".

The sage Agasthya, who was an expert in medicinal herbs, is believed to have lived around this site in ancient days.

[citation needed] Kanyakumari is at the southern tip and is the southernmost point of the contiguous Indian Subcontinent.

It was sculpted by the Indian sculptor V. Ganapati Sthapati, who also created the Iraivan Temple, and its opening ceremony was on 1 January 2000.

The memorial stands on one of two rocks in the Laccadive Sea, located about 500 metres (1,600 ft) east of the mainland of Vavathurai.

[32][33] The Gandhi Memorial Mandapam has been built on the spot where the urn containing the Mahatma's ashes was kept for public viewing before immersion.

Resembling central Indian Hindu temples in form,the memorial was designed such that on Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, the first rays of the sun fall on the exact place where his ashes were kept.

Like the Gandhi Memorial Mandapam, this monument is where Kamarajar's ashes were kept for the public to pay homage before immersion into the sea.

[35] Near Kanyakumari's southern shore stands a monument to the memory of those who died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, an underwater megathrust earthquake that claimed around 230,000 lives in many countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Thailand, Maldives, and Indonesia.

[36] The state-owned Poompuhar Shipping Corporation runs ferry services between the town and the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Thiruvalluvar Statue, both situated on rocky islets off the coast.