Sri Lankaශ්‍රී ලංකා

Sri Lanka's own chronicles, the Mahavamsa above all, begin with Prince Vijaya arriving from northern India in the fifth or sixth century BC and founding the Sinhala people. Whatever the legend's truth, by the third century BC a kingdom centred on Anuradhapura was building irrigation tanks and receiving Buddhism from Mahinda, a monk and son of the Indian emperor Ashoka. A cutting from the tree under which the Buddha was enlightened was planted there and is still venerated as the Sri Maha Bodhi.

Anuradhapura lasted more than a thousand years, raising stupas that rivalled the pyramids in volume and a hydraulic network of reservoirs and canals that fed the dry zone. In the fifth century AD a usurper, Kashyapa, built his palace on the rock of Sigiriya. Invasions from the Chola kingdom of south India ended Anuradhapura in the early eleventh century, and the capital moved to Polonnaruwa, whose king Parakramabahu I built the vast Parakrama Samudra reservoir in the twelfth century.

After Polonnaruwa declined, power drifted south-west, while a Tamil kingdom took shape in Jaffna. Portuguese traders landed in 1505 and controlled the coasts by the late sixteenth century, followed by the Dutch East India Company from 1658, which fortified Galle and ran the cinnamon trade. The inland kingdom of Kandy resisted both. Britain took the Dutch possessions in 1796 and, in 1815, Kandy itself, uniting the island as the colony of Ceylon.

The British planted coffee and then, after a blight in the 1870s, tea, bringing Tamil labourers from south India to work the estates. Ceylon became independent peacefully in 1948 and a republic, renamed Sri Lanka, in 1972. The 1956 Sinhala Only Act, which made Sinhala the sole official language, alienated Tamils and set the stage for decades of conflict, alongside two violent leftist uprisings in the south in 1971 and 1987–89.

Tamil grievances over language, university admissions and land settled by Sinhala farmers in the east grew into armed separatism in the 1970s. After the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983 in Colombo, which killed hundreds and drove many Tamils abroad, war broke out between the state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which fought for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east.

The war lasted 26 years. The LTTE ran a de facto state in the Vanni, used suicide bombers and killed a Sri Lankan president and a former Indian prime minister; Indian peacekeepers intervened in 1987–90; a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire in 2002 collapsed. The army's final offensive ended the war in May 2009 on a strip of beach at Mullivaikkal, with heavy civilian casualties that UN panels later said may have been in the tens of thousands.

The north and east reopened after 2009. New roads and the rebuilt railway to Jaffna brought southern tourists north for the first time in a generation, and landmine clearance has made most farmland usable again. Questions of accountability, missing persons and military-held land remain open, and memorial events in May are politically sensitive.

For visitors the war is mostly invisible, but it shapes the map: military camps in the north, Tamil and Sinhala names for the same places, and a large Tamil diaspora in Canada, the UK and Australia whose members return for temple festivals. The Easter Sunday bombings of 2019, carried out by local Islamist militants against churches and hotels, killed more than 260 people and hit tourism hard.

About three-quarters of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese, speaking Sinhala, an Indo-Aryan language written in a rounded script derived from ancient Brahmi. Most are Theravada Buddhists; a minority on the west coast are Catholic, a legacy of Portuguese missionaries. Sinhala society kept its own caste system, though far less rigid than India's, and the Kandyan highlands still see themselves as distinct from the low-country coast.

Sri Lankan Tamils, about one in nine people, have lived in the north and east for more than two thousand years and speak a form of Tamil that preserves older words than the Tamil of India. A separate group, the Malaiyaha or Hill Country Tamils, descend from plantation workers brought by the British; many were left stateless after independence and received citizenship only in the 1980s and 2000s.

Muslims, known locally as Moors, trace their roots to Arab and Indian traders, speak Tamil at home and form about one in eleven people, concentrated in the east and in Colombo's trading districts. Smaller communities include the Burghers, of Portuguese and Dutch descent, the Malays, brought by the Dutch from Java, and the Vedda, descendants of the island's earliest inhabitants.

English, once the language of the colonial elite, returned as a link language after the Sinhala Only years; it is taught in schools and widely used in tourism and business. Both Sinhala and Tamil are official, and signs carry all three scripts. Politeness runs through the languages: honorifics for elders and monks, and greetings with palms together, 'ayubowan' in Sinhala and 'vanakkam' in Tamil.

Sri Lanka regards itself as the guardian of Theravada Buddhism, the older school also followed in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, which it helped to spread. The Pali scriptures were first written down in the island in the first century BC, and the Buddha's tooth relic, brought from India in the fourth century AD, became the symbol of royal legitimacy; whoever held it had the right to rule. It is kept today in Kandy's Temple of the Tooth.

Daily Buddhist practice centres on the temple (vihara), with its white stupa (dagoba), Bo tree and image house. Devotees in white offer flowers and oil lamps, especially on Poya, the full-moon day that is a public holiday every month. Vesak in May, marking the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death, fills towns with lanterns and free food stalls. The 1978 constitution gives Buddhism 'the foremost place' while protecting other faiths.

Hinduism is the faith of most Tamils, with colourful gopuram temples in Jaffna, Trincomalee and Colombo. Popular belief crosses boundaries: Kataragama in the south-east is holy to Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and the Vedda alike, and Adam's Peak (Sri Pada) holds a footprint claimed as the Buddha's, Shiva's or Adam's. Many Buddhist temples have shrines to Hindu gods such as Vishnu and Kataragama, asked for worldly help.

Religion is also politics. Buddhist monks have played an active role in nationalist movements since independence, and hard-line groups have stirred anti-Muslim riots, notably in 2014 and 2018. For visitors, the rules are about respect: remove shoes and hats, wear white or light clothes that cover shoulders and knees, never pose with your back to a Buddha image, and cover any Buddha tattoos.

Sri Lankan cooking is built on rice, coconut and spice. A typical lunch, rice and curry, brings a heap of rice with several small dishes: lentils in coconut milk, a vegetable or two, fish or chicken, a fiery coconut sambol and crisp papadam. Compared with south Indian food it uses more coconut, more roasted curry powder and the island's signature seasoning, Maldive fish, sun-dried tuna flakes that give depth to vegetable dishes.

Spices made the island's name. Cinnamon, native to its forests, drew Arab and European traders for centuries; pepper, cardamom and cloves grow in the wet zone. Colonial rulers added their layers: Dutch Burgher lamprais baked in a banana leaf, Portuguese-influenced sweets, and Malay dishes such as the coconut custard watalappan, now a festival favourite for Muslims and everyone else.

Tea arrived after coffee rust wiped out the coffee estates in the 1870s. James Taylor's experiments at Loolecondera led to plantations that now cover the central hills, and 'Ceylon tea' remains the country's brand even though the country changed its name. Tea is graded by elevation: high-grown from Nuwara Eliya and Dimbula is light and fragrant, low-grown from the south is darker and stronger.

The plantation economy has a hard side. Estate workers, mostly Hill Country Tamils, have long been among the poorest people in the country, living in 'line rooms' and paid by the kilo of leaf picked. A visit to a working estate and factory shows the process from withering to rolling and grading, and many estates now run bungalows for visitors; ask how workers benefit before you choose one.

Sri Lanka has long had South Asia's best health and literacy indicators, thanks to free schooling and healthcare introduced in the 1940s. Its economy rests on garments, tea, tourism and money sent home by workers in the Gulf. Large infrastructure projects after the war, many financed by Chinese loans, including Hambantota port and Colombo's Port City, left heavy debts that became politically charged.

In 2022 the economy collapsed. Tax cuts, a sudden ban on chemical fertiliser, the pandemic's hit to tourism and debt repayments drained foreign reserves; fuel, gas and medicines ran out, and daily power cuts lasted up to 13 hours. The protest movement known as the Aragalaya, the struggle, occupied Galle Face Green for months and in July 2022 stormed the presidential residence; President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned.

An IMF programme followed, with tax rises and debt restructuring. In the 2024 elections voters turned away from the parties and families that had ruled since independence: Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People's Power, a left-leaning coalition, won the presidency in September and a two-thirds majority in parliament in November. The currency and inflation have stabilised, though living costs remain high — check the latest.

Tourism is central to recovery, with arrivals back above two million a year. Cyclone Ditwah in late November 2025 caused floods and landslides that killed hundreds and damaged hill-country roads and railways, a reminder of how exposed the island is to extreme weather. For visitors, the practical signs of the recent past are dual pricing at sites, card payments spreading, and a strong local interest in how tourism money is shared.