The Indian Institute of Technology Madras is in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, on about 250 hectares of wooded land. According to its overview page, it grew out of a 1959 Indo-German agreement signed in Bonn and was formally opened that year by Prof. Humayun Kabir, then Union Minister for Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs. It is one of the institutions declared of national importance by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, and its home page carries the Institute of Eminence designation.
The overview page lists sixteen academic departments, advanced research centres and nearly 100 laboratories. Undated figures on the home page give 2,105 undergraduate, 4,112 postgraduate, 746 MS research and 2,963 PhD research students, with 591 faculty and 677 staff. The institute also lists a campus in Zanzibar, Tanzania.