The Chennai consular district, covering three states and three union territories of the country, serves a population of about 160 million and includes seven official languages used daily in the post's visa operations.[17] An increasing middle-class population in the region who intend to travel abroad, increase in demand for skilled workforce in the United States, and the transformation of the Indo–U.S. relationship led to an increase in visa demand in the Chennai consular district in recent years. The demand for non-immigrant visas in Chennai increased by more than 80 percent between 2004 and 2007, peaking at around 280,000 in 2007.