Kadapa, city, southern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. It is located 5 miles (8 km) south of the Penneru River and is surrounded on three sides by the Nallamalai and Palkonda hills.
The city’s name is derived from the Telugu word kadapa or gadapa (“gate”) and is so named because it is the gateway from the north to the sacred hill pagoda of the Hindu deity Venkateshvara at Tirupati to the southeast. The city became known by the Anglicized name Cuddapah after the British took control of it in the early 19th century. It reverted to the Telugu form in 2005.
Peanuts (groundnuts), sunflowers, cotton, and melons dominate Kadapa’s agricultural economy. Several government colleges affiliated with Sri Venkateswara University at Tirupati are located there. The surrounding region, part of the southern section of the Eastern Ghats range, is the source of fine-grained limestones used for floor tiles and tabletops. Pop. (2001) city, 126,505; urban agglom., 262,506; (2011) urban agglom., 344,893.