In the historic town of Kumbakonam, on the northern bank of the river Kaveri, away from the din and dust of the town, a Provincial School started functioning in October 1854, three years before the State Universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras was incorporated. The Provincial School and later became the college, and it is familiarly known as the ‘Cambridge of South India’.

The college had celebrated centenary year in 1954 and now in the sesquicentennial in this year (2004). Most of the post graduated courses in this college were started in the year between 1970-90. At present the college has nine under graduate courses with equal number of post graduate courses. In the year 2001 all the post graduate departments were upgraded into research departments and conducting courses leading to M.Phil/Ph.D. under the affiliation of Bharathidasan University. The institution is approved by the NAAC/UGC/ and AICTE to conduct various computer applications program. Now the post graduate and research department of geography has been selected by the UGC to teach Spatial Information Technology for Disaster Management under the innovative program.