60 Fun Facts About Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka lies just off the southern tip of which country?

India: a chain of limestone shoals called Adam's Bridge or Rama Setu links Sri Lanka's Mannar Island to Pamban Island in India, and is said to have been walkable until a cyclone in 1480.

Which city is Sri Lanka's executive and judicial capital, and its largest city?

Colombo, on the west coast, is the largest city and seat of the executive and judiciary, home to the Presidential Secretariat and the Superior Courts Complex at Hulftsdorp.

Sri Lanka's parliament sits in which city, its legislative capital?

Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, usually shortened to Kotte, was the seat of a 15th-century kingdom; the new parliament complex there, designed by Geoffrey Bawa, opened in 1982.

Which strait separates Sri Lanka from the subcontinent to its north-west?

The Palk Strait, named after Robert Palk, an 18th-century governor of Madras, links the Bay of Bengal to Palk Bay; Adam's Bridge separates it from the Gulf of Mannar to the south-west.

In which year did the island gain independence from Britain?

Ceylon became an independent dominion on 4 February 1948, with D. S. Senanayake as its first prime minister; Independence Day is marked on 4 February.

In which year did the country become a republic and adopt the name Sri Lanka?

On 22 May 1972 the dominion of Ceylon became the Republic of Sri Lanka, dropping the British monarch as head of state; William Gopallawa became its first, ceremonial, president.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike made history in 1960 as the world's first what?

Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first Elected female prime minister in July 1960, leading the Sri Lanka Freedom Party after her husband's assassination; her three terms totalled about 18 years.

The 26-year civil war that ended in 2009 was fought against which separatist group?

The Tamil Tigers, formally the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, fought from 1983 for a separate state in the north and east until their military defeat in May 2009.

Roughly what share of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese?

About 75% of Sri Lankans were Sinhalese at the 2012 census (74.9%); Moors made up about 9%, with Burghers and the indigenous Vedda much smaller minorities.

Sri Lanka's two official languages are Sinhala and which other?

Tamil became an official language alongside Sinhala under the Thirteenth Amendment of 1987, which also made English the constitutional 'link language'.

Which religion, followed by about 70% of Sri Lankans, is given 'the foremost place' by the constitution?

Buddhism, professed by 70.2% of Sri Lankans at the 2012 census, is given 'the foremost place' by Article 9 of the constitution; each full-moon Poya day is a public holiday.

Mahinda, who by tradition brought his faith to the island, was the son of which emperor?

Ashoka, the Mauryan emperor, sent his son Mahinda, who converted King Devanampiya Tissa at Mihintale; Mahinda's sister Sanghamitta later brought a cutting of the Bodhi tree.

The Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi fig at Anuradhapura is claimed as the world's oldest what?

Human-planted tree on record: the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi was grown from a cutting of the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, with a traditional planting date in the 3rd century BCE.

Sigiriya, the 5th-century 'Fortress in the Sky', was built by which king?

Kashyapa I, who reigned 477-495 after seizing the throne from his father Dhatusena, built his palace on the summit of the 180-metre rock; only the foundations survive.

The name Sigiriya means what?

Lion Rock: the name comes from Sinhagiri, after the colossal brick lion whose paws flank the final staircase; the site later became a Buddhist monastery and is famous for its frescoes and mirror wall.

Which king, ruling 1153-1186, reunified the island and built scores of reservoirs at Polonnaruwa?

Parakramabahu the Great ruled from Polonnaruwa from 1153 to 1186, building or restoring hundreds of reservoirs and canals, and sent a punitive expedition against Burma.

Which old Arab and Persian name for the island gave English a word for happy accident?

Serendib was the Arab and Persian name for the island; Horace Walpole coined 'serendipity' in 1754 from the fairy tale 'The Three Princes of Serendip', whose heroes kept making lucky discoveries.

In which order did the three European colonial powers control parts of the island?

Portuguese, Dutch, British: the Portuguese held coastal forts from the early 16th century, the Dutch displaced them by 1658, and Britain took the coast in 1796 and the whole island in 1815.

Which inland city was the last independent Sinhalese kingdom, falling to the British in 1815?

The last king, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, was exiled to India. The city still houses the sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha.

The Temple of the Tooth houses a relic said to be a tooth of whom?

The Buddha: the tooth relic, said to have been smuggled to the island in the 4th century hidden in a princess's hair, traditionally gave its possessor the right to rule.

Which city at the island's northern tip is home to the Nallur Kandaswamy temple?

Jaffna, on the peninsula at the island's northern tip, is the centre of the Nallur Kandaswamy temple's annual festival and of the public library burned down in 1981 and later rebuilt.

Before tea, which crop was the island's main export until a leaf disease wiped it out in the 1870s and 80s?

Coffee was the colony's main export until the rust fungus Hemileia vastatrix, first noticed in 1869, destroyed the plantations over the next two decades and planters switched to tea.

Which British planter introduced tea cultivation to the island in 1867?

James Taylor, a Scot who arrived in 1852, planted the first commercial tea at Loolecondera estate in 1867; Thomas Lipton only bought his Ceylon plantations in 1890.

Most cinnamon sold worldwide is actually which related spice, rather than Sri Lankan 'true cinnamon'?

Cassia, the bark of Cinnamomum cassia grown mainly in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, makes up most of the world's cinnamon trade; Ceylon 'true cinnamon' comes from Cinnamomum verum.

What appears in each of the four corners of Sri Lanka's lion flag?

A bo leaf, from the sacred fig, sits in each corner as a symbol of the majority faith; the green and orange stripes stand for the island's two largest minorities.

What is Sri Lanka's highest mountain?

Pidurutalagala rises 2,524 metres above the hill town of Nuwara Eliya; its summit carries the island's main broadcast transmitters and is a restricted military zone.

The rock formation at the summit of Adam's Peak, sacred to four religions, resembles what?

A footprint: Buddhists hold the 1.8-metre hollow to be Gautama's, Hindus Shiva's, while Muslim and Christian tradition assign it to Adam or St Thomas; pilgrims climb overnight for the sunrise.

What is Sri Lanka's longest river?

The Mahaweli runs 335 kilometres from the central highlands to the sea at Trincomalee, draining the largest basin of the island's 103 rivers.

In which year did Sri Lanka win the Cricket World Cup?

In 1996 Sri Lanka beat Australia by seven wickets in the final at Lahore, Aravinda de Silva scoring an unbeaten century; they lost the finals of 2007 and 2011.

Which Sri Lankan spinner is the only bowler to take 800 Test wickets?

Muttiah Muralitharan took his 800th wicket with the final ball of his last Test in July 2010; a 2002 Wisden statistical analysis ranked him the greatest Test bowler ever.

Although cricket is by far the most popular, what is Sri Lanka's official national sport?

Volleyball was declared the national sport in 1991, though cricket dominates; angampora, an indigenous martial art, also survives.

Susanthika Jayasinghe won Sri Lanka's second Olympic medal, a silver at Sydney 2000, in which event?

Women's 200 metres: Jayasinghe's bronze was upgraded to silver after Marion Jones was disqualified; the island's first medal was Duncan White's 400m hurdles silver at the London Games.

Roughly how many people were killed in Sri Lanka by the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004?

Over 30,000 died in Sri Lanka, the official toll being about 35,000, second only to Indonesia's; more than half a million people were displaced.

Which president fled to Singapore and resigned by email after protesters stormed his residence in 2022?

Gotabaya Rajapaksa flew to the Maldives and then Singapore, e-mailing his resignation on 14 July 2022 after the country's first sovereign default, months of fuel queues and long power cuts.

In 2021 Sri Lanka tried to become the world's first nation to farm entirely how, with disastrous results?

Organically: an April 2021 ban on importing synthetic fertiliser and agrochemicals cut rice and tea yields sharply, and the policy was reversed in November 2021 as food prices soared.

Which British sci-fi author moved to the island in 1956 for the diving and died there in 2008?

Arthur C. Clarke settled in Ceylon for the diving, co-discovered the submerged ruins of the Koneswaram temple off Trincomalee, and received Sri Lankabhimanya, the highest civilian honour, in 2005.

Which Sri Lankan-born author of 'The English Patient' became a naturalised Canadian?

Michael Ondaatje, born in 1943 into a Burgher family, moved to Canada in 1962; his 1982 memoir 'Running in the Family' revisits the island.

The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, founded in 1923, holds what distinction?

Oldest radio station in Asia is the title Radio Ceylon claims: engineer Edward Harper began experimental broadcasts in December 1923, three years after regular broadcasting started in Europe; television only arrived in 1979.

Watalappam, a coconut-milk and jaggery pudding, came to Sri Lanka from which community?

The Malays, descended from soldiers and exiles brought from Java under Dutch rule, gave the island watalappam; the dessert is a fixture at Muslim festivals.

Lamprais, a Burgher dish, is rice cooked in stock and baked in what?

A banana leaf: the rice, meat curry, frikkadels and sambols are wrapped in the leaf and baked; the name comes from Dutch 'lomprijst', meaning a packet of rice.

Baila, an upbeat Sri Lankan popular music style, originated among which community?

The Afro-Sinhalese Kaffirs, descendants of Africans brought to the island by European colonists from the 16th century, blended Iberian melodies with African rhythms into what became the island's party music.

Which is the most prominent of the three Sri Lankan classical dance styles, known for its elaborate male headdress?

Kandyan dance, from the central hills, has five sub-styles including the Ves dance with its silver headdress, accompanied by the geta beraya drum.

Which Chinese admiral landed at Galle in 1409, captured its king and left a trilingual inscription?

Zheng He's fleet set up the Galle Trilingual Inscription, dated 1409 and written in Chinese, Persian and a local language; rediscovered in 1911, it is kept in the national museum.

Who reigned in Sri Lanka from 47 to 42 BCE, thought to be Asia's first female ruler?

Anula, the first queen regnant in the Mahavamsa's chronicle, reputedly poisoned a series of husbands and lovers to keep the throne at Anuradhapura before being overthrown by Kutakanna Tissa.

In which century was Anuradhapura sacked by the Cholas and Sri Lanka's capital moved to Polonnaruwa?

11th century: Rajendra Chola's invasion of 1017 carried King Mahinda V into captivity, and the Cholas were only driven out in 1070, after which the capital stayed at Polonnaruwa.

Only about what share of male Sri Lankan elephants grow tusks?

Only about 7% of Sri Lankan bull elephants carry tusks, tuskless males being called makhna; each dry season hundreds gather at the Minneriya tank in a spectacle called 'The Gathering'.

Which national park in the north-west is Sri Lanka's largest?

Wilpattu covers about 1,317 square kilometres and takes its name from its many 'villus', natural rain-fed lakes; Yala in the south-east is smaller but far more visited.

Per the Mahavamsa, Sinhalese history begins in 543 BCE with the arrival of which prince from Bengal?

Vijaya landed with 700 followers and named the island Tambapanni, 'copper-coloured', for the red soil that stained their hands, then married the yakkha princess Kuveni.

In the Hindu epic Ramayana, the island kingdom of Lanka is ruled by which demon king?

Ravana, the ten-headed rakshasa king, seized Lanka from his half-brother Kubera, the god of wealth, and abducted Sita, prompting Rama's invasion of the island.

The Pali Canon, the Theravada scriptures, was first written down in Sri Lanka in roughly which year?

29 BCE is the traditional date when, after a famine killed many monks who had memorised the texts, the Pali Canon was committed to palm leaves under King Vattagamani Abhaya.

In which year did Sri Lanka win the ICC World Twenty20, beating their neighbours in the final in Bangladesh?

In 2014 Sri Lanka beat their neighbours by six wickets in the final at Mirpur; it was Kumar Sangakkara's and Mahela Jayawardene's T20 international farewell, after lost finals in 2009 and 2012.

What is Sri Lanka's currency?

Rupee: the Sri Lankan rupee is divided into 100 cents and issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka; the taka, rufiyaa and kyat belong to Bangladesh, the Maldives and Myanmar.

What share of Sri Lankans told a 2008 Gallup poll that religion mattered in daily life?

99% of respondents said religion was an important part of their daily life, which ranked the island third among the countries Gallup surveyed in 2008.

Ratnapura, the 'city of gems', is the main source of which precious stone?

Sapphire: Ratnapura's gem gravels yield the blue Ceylon sapphires, among them the 423-carat Logan Sapphire now held by the Smithsonian Institution.

What name have archaeologists given the anatomically modern humans found in Sri Lankan caves?

Balangoda Man is the name for the Mesolithic Homo sapiens remains from caves such as Fa Hien Lena and Batadomba Lena, dated to more than 30,000 years ago; settlement evidence goes back 125,000 years.

For roughly how many years did Anuradhapura serve as Sri Lanka's capital?

1,400 years, roughly: Pandukabhaya made Anuradhapura the royal seat around the 4th century BCE, and it remained the capital until the Chola conquest forced a move to Polonnaruwa.

In which year did Sri Lanka adopt the full name Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka?

The 1978 constitution, in force from 7 September 1978, adopted the full name and created an executive presidency, with J. R. Jayewardene as its first holder.

Who was sworn in as Sri Lanka's president in September 2024 after winning as a left-wing candidate?

Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People's Power alliance was sworn in on 23 September 2024; his alliance then won a two-thirds parliamentary majority in the November election.

Which Sri Lankan president was killed by a suicide bomber at a 1993 May Day rally?

Ranasinghe Premadasa, president since 1989, was killed on 1 May 1993 when a suicide bomber on a bicycle struck his May Day procession; D. B. Wijetunga succeeded him.

Roughly what share of Sri Lanka's 3,210 flowering plant species are found nowhere else?

27% is the rough share: some 900 of the island's flowering plant species grow nowhere else, concentrated in the wet-zone rainforests of the south-west such as Sinharaja.