Sri Lanka << sree LAHNG kuh >> is an island country in the Indian Ocean. It lies about 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the southeast coast of India. Its official name is the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The country was formerly called Ceylon. Agriculture is one of Sri Lanka’s major economic activities. Many farmers grow world-famous Sri Lankan tea, also called Ceylon tea. Colombo, a seaport, is the largest city and the commercial center of Sri Lanka. Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte is the country’s capital. Sri Lanka became independent in 1948.
Government.
A president heads Sri Lanka’s government. A 225-member Parliament passes the nation’s laws. The voters elect the president and the members of Parliament to five-year terms. The president appoints a Cabinet and a prime minister, who is typically the leader of the largest party in Parliament.
Sri Lanka has a number of political parties. The main parties include the Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP), the United People’s Force, and the United National Party.
Sri Lanka is divided into nine provinces governed by provincial councils that are directly elected by the people. The provinces, in turn, are divided into 25 districts.
Sri Lanka’s highest court is the Supreme Court. The type of law used in private Sri Lankan court cases, such as divorces, depends on the religion of the people involved. For example, Islamic law applies to Muslims (people of Islamic faith).
People.
The people of Sri Lanka belong to several different ethnic groups. The largest groups are the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The Sinhalese make up about 74 percent of the population. They are descended from people from northern India. Their language is called Sinhala, and most of them are Buddhists. The Tamils make up about 18 percent of the population. They are descendants of people from southern India. They speak Tamil, and most of them are Hindus. Most Tamils live in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. Both Sinhala and Tamil are official languages of the country.
Moors, who are descendants of Arabs, form Sri Lanka’s third largest ethnic group. They make up about 7 percent of the population. Most Moors speak Tamil and are Muslims. Smaller ethnic groups in Sri Lanka include Burghers, Malays, and Veddahs. The Burghers are descendants of European settlers who intermarried with Sri Lankans. The Malays are descended from people who came from what is now Malaysia. The Veddahs are descendants of Sri Lanka’s first known residents.
Many of the people of Sri Lanka farm the land and follow the traditions of their ancestors. Colombo is Sri Lanka’s largest city by far. The middle class and the wealthy have substantial housing. In both rural and urban areas, many middle- and upper-class houses are surrounded by a walled compound. Houses with mud walls and thatched roofs are common among the poorer rural people. Many Sri Lankans, especially rural people, live in extended families, in which more than two generations of the same family live together. The caste system, which divides people into social classes, exists among both Sinhalese and Tamils.
Most rural Sri Lankan men wear a sarong (long strip of cloth wrapped around the waist to form a skirt) and a shirt. Many urban men wear clothing similar to that worn by North Americans and Europeans. Sri Lankan women wear a redde (skirt similar to a sarong), with a blouse or jacket; or a sari (straight piece of cloth draped around the body as a long dress).
Rice is the chief food in Sri Lanka. It is served with curry dishes—stewlike dishes of vegetables, meat, fish, or eggs seasoned with spices. Tea is a favorite drink.
Sri Lankans follow a variety of religions. The countryside is dotted with Buddhist and Hindu temples and shrines, Islamic mosques, and Christian churches. About 70 percent of the people are Buddhists. Christians, Hindus, and Muslims each account for between 5 and 10 percent of the population.
Education in Sri Lanka is free from kindergarten through the university level. Sri Lanka has several universities. Most Sri Lankans 15 years of age or older can read and write.
Architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, music, and dance flourished for centuries in Sri Lanka. Much of the island’s ancient art focused on religious themes. Remains of this art can still be seen in ruins of some cities and in museums in Colombo and Kandy. Today, dance is an important art form among both Sinhalese and Tamils. Sri Lanka craftworkers make jewelry, pottery, baskets, mats, and wooden masks.
Land and climate.
The south-central part of Sri Lanka is mountainous. Plains surround the mountains on the east, south, and west, and cover most of the northern half of the island.
A variety of wild animals, including bears, birds, crocodiles, elephants, monkeys, and snakes, live in Sri Lanka. Thousands of species of ferns and flowering plants grow there. Common plants include bougainvillea, orchids, poinsettias, and fruit trees. A tropical rain forest covers much of southwestern Sri Lanka.
Temperatures in the low coastal areas average 80 °F (27 °C). Temperatures in the mountains average 60 °F (16 °C). Average annual rainfall ranges from about 50 inches (130 centimeters) in the northeast to about 200 inches (510 centimeters) in parts of the southwest.
Economy.
Sri Lanka has a developing economy in which both government control and free enterprise play a part. Agriculture is an important economic activity. Farmers raise beef and dairy cattle and chickens. Important crops include coconuts, plantains, rice, rubber, tea, and tomatoes. Coconuts, rubber, and tea are also among the country’s leading exports. Service industries employ about half of the workers. Hotels, restaurants, and shops benefit from the growing number of tourists who visit Sri Lanka from China, India, the United Kingdom, and other places. Major manufacturing activities include the processing of such agricultural goods as coconuts, rubber, tea, and tobacco and the manufacture of clothes and textiles.
Sri Lanka has an extensive road system. However, most of its roads are unpaved. Colombo is a major seaport. International airports operate near Colombo and Hambantota.
History.
The island of Sri Lanka was called Ceylon until 1972. The island has been home to many ethnic groups. Its first inhabitants are believed to have been tribal peoples called the Yaksa and Naga. The Veddahs are probably descendants of these peoples.
Vijaya, a legendary prince from northern India, is said to have led the Sinhalese culture’s founders to the island around 500 B.C. The Sinhalese settled in the north-central part of the island and built advanced irrigation systems to support agriculture. The city of Anuradhapura became the center of Sinhalese civilization in the 200’s B.C. Around A.D. 1000, Polonnaruwa became the civilization’s center. The civilization flourished until around A.D. 1200, when its rulers began fighting among themselves.
Tamils, originally from southern India, have also lived on the island since early times. Sinhalese kings often married Tamil princesses from southern India. Tamils had numerous economic and cultural ties with Indian kingdoms. Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms fought many wars for control of Ceylon. Local Tamil kings established control over the north of the island around A.D. 1300. Sinhalese kingdoms occupied the rest of the island.
European control of Ceylon began in the 1500’s. The Portuguese sailed into what is now Colombo Harbor in 1505. They gradually gained control of the island’s main coastal areas. The Dutch replaced the Portuguese in the mid-1600’s. The British took control of the Dutch territories in 1796. They made Ceylon a crown colony in 1802. The British took over the Sinhalese mountain kingdom of Kandy in 1815 and united the island under their rule. The British developed coconut, coffee, rubber, and tea plantations. They brought in poor Tamils from south India to work at coffee and tea plantations in the highlands. These immigrants and their descendants became known as plantation Tamils or Indian Tamils.
The colony gradually gained self-government in the 1900’s. It became independent on Feb. 4, 1948. Ceylon adopted a parliamentary form of government headed by a prime minister. D. S. Senanayake, of the United National Party (UNP), became the first prime minister. His government passed laws that stripped plantation Tamils of their citizenship. Eventually, about half of the plantation Tamils were forced back to India. D. S. Senanayake was succeeded by his son, Dudley Senanayake, in 1952.
S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike became prime minister in 1956. He was the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). His government passed a law that made Sinhala the country’s only official language. The Tamils resented the law, and clashes broke out between Tamils and Sinhalese. Compromises were made to provide for the use of Tamil in many areas. Bandaranaike reached an agreement with the Tamil political party that would have granted Tamils some self-government. The agreement also would have provided for the official use of the Tamil language in some areas of government in the Northern and Eastern provinces. However, the agreement was blocked by Buddhist clergy, Sinhalese nationalists, and the UNP. Bandaranaike was assassinated by a Sinhalese extremist in 1959. His widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became prime minister in 1960. She was the world’s first woman prime minister.
Dudley Senanayake became prime minister again in 1965. Around this time, the UNP government tried to establish legislation to make Tamil an official language in the Northern and Eastern provinces. However, protests by Sinhalese nationalists blocked these efforts. Sirimavo Bandaranaike regained the office of prime minister in 1970. In 1972, the country changed its name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka, which means Resplendent Land.
In 1977, J. R. Jayewardene, the UNP leader, became prime minister. He became president in 1978 after a constitutional amendment made the president—not the prime minister— head of the government. He completed two terms as president. In 1988, Ranasinghe Premadasa of the UNP was elected president. He had been the prime minister under Jayewardene. See Premadasa, Ranasinghe.
Tension grew between the Sinhalese and the Tamils during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Many Tamils felt the Sinhalese-dominated government treated them unfairly. Some Tamils wanted a separate state, called Tamil Eelam, to be established in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. Militant Tamil groups—especially the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)—favored the use of force to achieve the separate state.
In 1983, violence broke out in the north between militant Tamils and government troops, sparking a civil war. Riots in Colombo killed or injured many Tamils and destroyed many Tamil homes and businesses. Thousands of Tamils fled to India.
In 1987, Sri Lanka and India attempted to control the crisis with a peace agreement that sought to create provincial government councils with substantial local power. The agreement would have allowed Tamils and Muslims in the northeast some self-government. Most Tamil groups agreed to the plan, but the LTTE did not, and its members continued to fight government forces. In addition, Sinhalese nationalists, who opposed any compromise with the Tamils, attacked government officials and supporters. The Sri Lankan armed forces put down the Sinhalese nationalists but were unable to defeat the LTTE. The Tamil language gained its official status in 1987. By 1990, the government had given citizenship to the plantation Tamils remaining in Sri Lanka. See Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
In 1993, the LTTE assassinated President Premadasa. The prime minister, D. B. Wijetunga, then became acting president. In 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga—the daughter of S. W. R. D. and Sirimavo Bandaranaike—was elected president, and she was reelected in 1999. She appointed her mother prime minister. The government and the LTTE declared a cease-fire in January 1995, but intense fighting soon resumed. In 2001, the UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was elected prime minister. He entered into another cease-fire with the LTTE in February 2002. However, the two sides were unable to negotiate a permanent agreement.
In December 2004, a massive undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a series of large ocean waves called a tsunami. The tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people in coastal areas, including about 35,000 in Sri Lanka.
In 2005, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected president. Fighting between the LTTE and government forces increased greatly after his election. The 2002 cease-fire ended in 2008. In 2008 and 2009, Sri Lanka’s military increased its efforts to destroy the LTTE. Both the government and the LTTE faced international criticism for placing thousands of civilians in danger while fighting raged. In May 2009, the military announced that it had killed the LTTE’s leader and defeated the rebels. In 2015, the Sri Lankan government announced plans to establish a special court to investigate allegations that both the LTTE and government forces had committed war crimes during the civil war.
Rajapaksa was reelected in 2010. In 2015, Maithripala Sirisena, a former Rajapaksa ally, defeated Rajapaksa in presidential elections.
On April 21, 2019, suicide bombers attacked three Christian churches during Easter morning services, as well as several hotels, in Sri Lanka. About 250 people were killed, and more than 500 others were wounded. Sri Lankan authorities determined that members of a small, militant Islamic group were responsible for the attacks. The events strained relations among the country’s various ethnic groups. 
Later in 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected president. His brother, the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, became prime minister. The party supporting them, the Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP), won a majority of the seats in the 2020 parliamentary elections.
In 2022, a growing economic crisis, including serious food and fuel shortages, led to massive popular protests that forced Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to resign in May and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign in July. Protesters also demanded the resignation of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Gotabaya Rajapaksa had made Wickremesinghe prime minister in May and named him acting president in July. The Parliament elected Wickremesinghe to serve as president after Rajapaksa resigned.
