This is a short page and an unusual one: it is a list of the measurements of a place, with each figure labelled by where it came from. We are writing it because the single most practical question about Ananthapura — how far is it from Kumbla — is not answered by any reference source we could find, and because we would rather show our working than quietly print a number.
The distance, and how we got it
The English Wikipedia article on Kumbla gives coordinates of 12°35′41″N 74°56′50″E, and locates the town twelve kilometres north of Kasaragod. The Ananthapura Lake Temple is given at 12°35′03″N 74°58′47″E. Neither article states the distance between them.
From those two published coordinates, the great-circle distance is 3.72 kilometres. That is our own calculation, not a sourced figure, and it is a straight line — which nobody drives. Our own record for the temple describes it as about six kilometres inland from Kumbla, and those two numbers are not in conflict: a road distance of roughly 1.5 times the straight line is entirely ordinary in this kind of country. Use six kilometres for planning and 3.7 for understanding where you are.
Ananthapura by the numbers, each with its source
| Figure | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Kumbla → Ananthapura, 3.72 km straight line | Our calculation from the two published coordinates |
| About 6 km by road | Our own record for the temple; consistent with the above |
| Kumbla is 12 km north of Kasaragod | en.wikipedia |
| The lake extends about 302 feet | en.wikipedia; Kerala Tourism gives roughly 302 feet on each side |
| Roughly 2 acres | en.wikipedia |
| The only lake temple in Kerala | en.wikipedia |
| Spring-fed, and said never to run dry | Tradition and local description, not a hydrological measurement |
Two acres and 302 feet — check the arithmetic
It is worth doing, because it is the sort of thing that turns out not to add up. A square of 302 feet a side is about 91,200 square feet, which is a little over two acres. So the two figures agree, and both descriptions are of the same rectangular tank. That is a small piece of reassurance about a source, and small pieces of reassurance are worth collecting when the rest of the record is, in the reference works’ own word, obscure.
- Base yourself at Kasaragod or Kumbla. The temple is a short hop inland, not a destination in itself for a day.
- It is a compact shrine, not a large complex — allow a lot less time than the drive suggests, and more time than you expect for simply standing and looking at the water.
- Combine it with Kumbla itself: the fort at Arikady, the Gopalakrishna temple, and the river mangroves. Those are covered in the town’s own record on this page.
- One footbridge in and out. On a busy day that is the constraint on the whole visit.
Why bother publishing a calculation
Because the alternative is what everyone else does, which is to write “about 5 km” or “around 8 km” with no indication of where that came from, and then to have it copied. We have spent several rounds on this site tracing numbers that entered the world exactly like that — a dam height that was a reservoir level, a saint’s title that was two titles welded together, a wetland published at two hundred metres above the sea.
A calculation you can check is a different kind of object from a number you cannot. Both coordinates are published; the arithmetic is a standard great-circle formula; if we have made an error, it is an error anyone can find. That is the whole point of showing it.