Ernakulam refers to the eastern part of the mainland of Kochi city in Kerala, India. Ernakulam is the most urban part of Kochi and has lent its name to Ernakulam District. The Office of the Corporation of Cochin, and the Kerala High Court are situated here.The name 'Ernakulam' is derived from the name of a very famous temple of Lord Shiva called the Ernakulathappan Temple. It is also said that the word Ernakulam was drawn from Malayalam word 'Ere naal Kulam', which means 'Pond for a long time'. Ernakulam is the commercial capital of the state of Kerala.

Major Malayalam newspapers published in Kochi include Malayala Manorama, Mathrubhumi, Deshabhimani, Deepika, Kerala Kaumudi and Veekshanam. Popular English newspapers include The Hindu, The New Indian Express and The Pioneer. A number of evening papers are also published from the city. Newspapers in other regional languages like Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu are also sold in large numbers.

Being the seat of the Cochin Stock Exchange, a number of financial publications are also published in the city. These include The Economic Times, Business Line, The Business Standard and The Financial Express. Prominent magazines and religious publications like the Sathyadeepam, The Week and Vanitha are also published from the city. Television stations in Kochi include Asianet Cable Vision, Indiavision, Kairali TV, Jeevan TV, Amrita TV, JaiHind TV and Manorama News. Satellite television services are available through Doordarshan Direct Plus, Dish TV and Tata Sky.

All India Radio has two FM stations in the city, operating at 102.3 MHz and 107.5 MHz.Private FM radio stations are Club Fm (the Mathrubhumi Printing And Publishing Co Ltd) -94.3, Radio Mango (the Malayala Manorama Co Ltd) -91.9,and S Fm (Kal Radio,Sun Network) 93.5. Private satellite radios such as WorldSpace, are also available. There are over twenty cinema halls that screen movies in Malayalam, Tamil, English and Hindi. A film festival, known as the Cochin International Film Festival (CIFF), is held in the city every year.

Ernakulam has the highest density of telephones in India. Telephony services are provided by various players like Airtel, Idea cellular, Vodafone, Reliance Infocomm, Tata Indicom and the state owned BSNL.