A Rotary district is defined as 'a geographical territory in which Rotary Clubs are associated for Rotary International administrative purposes.' The district governor administers the district on behalf of Rotary International.

The Rotary Club of Madras originally belonged to District 56 in 1929.

District 56 became District 89 in 1937-38 and Rtn. F. E. James was the first district governor of this district.

From the 1940s, right up to July 1984, the district was known as District 320 and comprised around 60 clubs in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Sri Lanka.

In 1984, the district was divided into District 320 and District 323, each comprising about 40 clubs.

Under the new District 323 were clubs belonging to Madras, Chinglepet, Salem, Vellore, North Arcot, South Arcot, Thanjavur, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri.

In July 1993, District 323 was bifurcated into District 3230 and District 2980.

The Rotary Club of Madras comes under District 3230 as do all the clubs in Chennai, Chinglepet, Kanchipuram,Thiruvannamalai and Vellore. There is a file dedicated to the first 80 years of RC of Madras which can be read as PDF here and was provided by RGHF member N.K.Gopinath