It has many ancient Vishnu and Shiva temples, and water tanks built during the Hoysala Dynasty.

It is well connected by road and rail to the other important cities of Tamil Nadu such as Vellore, Chennai, Salem, Coimbatore and Thiruvannamalai and to Bangalore in Karnataka.

Historically, it has been a favoured administrative station and was the original British capital of then Salem district.

Colonel Alexander Read, the first Collector of the district, established his headquarters in Tiruppattur in 1792.

Anna Rajam Malhotra, India's first female Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, K P S Menon Jr., former foreign secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Dr. T V Somanathan were sub-collectors of Tirupathur during their initial career.

Tirupattur's population and land area are good enough to have political representations in the state legislature of Tamil Nadu (Member of the Legislative Assembly), and part of Thiruvannamalai constituency for the Lok Sabha (Member of Parliament as of 2009 elections).

The major group of soils found in the town are black (10 percent) and red (90 varieties).

Tirupathur is known for recording the coolest temperature in the Tamil Nadu plains during winter.

The town also experiences fairly frequent thunderstorms in late April and May, which gives necessary relief from the heat, along with a dip in night temperatures.

The present MP (elected in 2019) of the Tiruvannamalai Lok Sabha Constituency is Annadurai.

Located at an altitude of 1,050 m (3,440 ft) and spread across 30 km2 (12 sq mi), Yelagiri village (also spelt Elagiri) is surrounded by orchards, rose gardens, and valleys.

The Jalagambarai falls is located 10 kms from Tirupattur town which attracts several tourists from Bengaluru and Chennai along the weekends.

Regarding transportation linkage, the highway (NH 46) from Chennai to Krishnagiri (via) Nattrampalli passes through the town.

Frequent buses are available to Chennai, Vellore, Harur, Salem, Bangalore, and Villupuram.

Due to proximity to the Jolarpettai railway junction, only a few express trains halt here.