60 Fun Facts About Sri Lanka

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

A chain of limestone shoals called Adam's Bridge or Rama Setu links the two; legend says it was walkable until cyclones broke it up in 1480.

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

The Portuguese built a fort there in 1517. The legislature sits in neighbouring Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, one of the world's longest capital names.

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

Usually shortened to Kotte, it was the seat of a 15th-century kingdom and adjoins the Colombo urban area.

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

Together with the Gulf of Mannar. Adam's Bridge, a chain of limestone shoals, runs across it between Mannar Island and India's Pamban Island.

In which year did the island gain independence from Britain?

Independence Day is 4 February. D. S. Senanayake became the first prime minister and the Royal Navy stayed at Trincomalee until 1956.

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

The full title became the 'Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka' in 1978, when J. R. Jayawardene created a French-style executive presidency.

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

She took over the party after her husband was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959, and served three separate terms totalling more than 17 years.

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

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fought for a separate state in the north and east. Between 60,000 and 100,000 people died.

Roughly what share of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese?

Around 15% are Tamil-speaking Tamils; Moors, Burghers, Malays and the indigenous Vedda make up the rest.

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

English is constitutionally the 'link language'. The 1956 Sinhala Only Act, which briefly made Sinhala the sole official language, helped sow the ethnic conflict.

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

Sri Lanka has the longest continuous Buddhist history of any majority-Buddhist country, and Buddhists mark Poya days at each full moon.

By tradition, Buddhism reached Sri Lanka in 250 BCE with Mahinda, the son of which Indian emperor?

He converted King Devanampiya Tissa at Mihintale. Mahinda's sister Sanghamitta followed five years later with a cutting of the Bodhi tree.

The Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi at Anuradhapura, grown from a cutting brought from India in 245 BCE, is the world's oldest what?

It grows at Anuradhapura, which served as the capital for almost 1,400 years and is now a UNESCO site.

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

He put his palace atop a 180-metre granite column, entered through a gateway shaped like a giant lion. Only the paws survive today.

The name Sigiriya means what?

From Sinhagiri, after the enormous lion gateway halfway up. It later became a Buddhist monastery and is famous for its frescoes and 'mirror wall'.

Which king, ruling 1153-1186, built 1,470 reservoirs including the Parakrama Samudra, the most of any Sri Lankan ruler?

His reign is seen as the peak of Sri Lankan power; he even sent a punitive expedition against Burma.

The English word 'serendipity' derives from an old Arab and Persian name for Sri Lanka. What was it?

Horace Walpole coined 'serendipity' in 1754 after the fairy tale 'The Three Princes of Serendip'. The Greeks called the island Taprobane.

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

Lourenço de Almeida arrived in 1505; the Dutch took Colombo in 1656; Britain seized the coast in 1796 and Kandy 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?

Possession of the relic traditionally conferred the right to rule. Each summer it is paraded on an elephant during the Esala Perahera festival.

The Esala Perahera festival of dancers and decorated elephants is held in which city?

Fire dances and whip-crackers lead processions from the Temple of the Tooth over ten nights.

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

The fungus Hemileia vastatrix struck in 1869. Planter James Taylor had begun growing tea in 1867, and the British switched wholesale.

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

His Loolecondera estate near Kandy was the first. Thomas Lipton came later and bought plantations to supply his shops.

'True cinnamon', Cinnamomum verum, is named for its origins on which island?

Most cinnamon sold worldwide is actually cassia from China, Indonesia or Vietnam. The spice drew the Portuguese to the island in 1505.

Sri Lanka's flag shows a golden lion holding a sword. What appears in each of its four corners?

The leaves of the sacred fig represent Buddhism; the teal and orange stripes stand for the Muslim and Tamil minorities.

What is Sri Lanka's highest mountain?

It rises 2,524 metres above Nuwara Eliya. Adam's Peak is lower but far more famous because of the footprint-shaped hollow at its summit.

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

Buddhists say it is the Buddha's, Hindus Shiva's, and Muslims and Christians attribute it to Adam or St Thomas. Pilgrims climb by night to see the sunrise.

What is Sri Lanka's longest river?

It runs 335 km from the central highlands to Trincomalee. The island has 103 rivers and 51 waterfalls over ten metres high.

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

They beat Australia in Lahore, having pioneered all-out attacking batting in the opening overs. They lost the finals of 2007 and 2011.

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

He took the 800th with his final ball in Tests, against India in 2010. Wisden rated him the greatest Test bowler ever.

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

Two native martial arts, angampora and cheena di, also survive. Sri Lanka has won two Olympic medals, both silvers in athletics.

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

The first had come 52 years earlier when Duncan White took silver in the 400m hurdles at London 1948.

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

More than half a million were displaced. The country's 7,000 hectares of mangroves are credited with blunting the waves in places.

In July 2022 protesters stormed the President's House. Which president fled to Singapore and resigned by email?

The country had defaulted on its debt for the first time amid 15-hour power cuts and fuel shortages, partly triggered by a sudden ban on chemical fertiliser.

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

A snap ban on synthetic fertiliser and pesticides slashed tea and rice yields; the plan was abandoned within months as food prices soared.

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

He found the underwater ruins of the Koneswaram temple off Trincomalee and received the country's highest civil honour in 2005.

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

He was born in Colombo into a Burgher family; his memoir 'Running in the Family' revisits the island.

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

Engineer Edward Harper started it just three years after regular broadcasting began in Europe. Television did not arrive until 1979.

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

Burgher families contributed lamprais, rice baked in a banana leaf, and breudher, a Dutch holiday cake.

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

The name comes from Dutch 'lomprijst', a packet of rice. Everyday meals are more likely rice and curry, hoppers, string hoppers or kottu roti.

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

Descendants of Africans brought by the Portuguese, they blended Portuguese and African rhythms into what is now party music across the island.

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

Its five sub-styles include the Ves dance, and the drummer keeps time on a geta beraya.

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

The Galle Trilingual Inscription, in Chinese, Tamil and Persian, was rediscovered in 1911 and is in the Colombo National Museum.

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

She reputedly poisoned a series of husbands and lovers to keep the throne at Anuradhapura before being overthrown.

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

Rajendra's 1017 invasion carried off King Mahinda V to India. Vijayabahu I drove the Cholas out in 1070 after a 17-year campaign.

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

Tuskless males are called makhna. Each dry season hundreds of elephants gather at the Minneriya tank in a spectacle called 'The Gathering'.

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

Yala in the south-east is more visited and famous for leopards; Sinharaja is a rainforest biosphere reserve with 26 endemic birds.

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

He landed with 700 followers and named the island Tambapanni, 'copper-red', for the soil that stained their hands.

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

Kubera, god of wealth, had it built by the divine architect Vishvakarma before his stepbrother seized it.

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

After a famine killed many monks who had memorised it, survivors committed it to palm leaves at the Alulena cave temple near Kegalle.

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

It was Kumar Sangakkara's and Mahela Jayawardene's T20 farewell. They had lost the finals of 2009 and 2012.

What is Sri Lanka's currency?

It was the Ceylon rupee until 1972. The taka, rufiyaa and kyat belong to Bangladesh, the Maldives and Myanmar.

A 2008 Gallup poll ranked Sri Lanka third most religious in the world. What share said religion mattered daily?

Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians all keep their own festivals, and April brings a shared Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

The name Ceylon is an English rendering of Ceilão, the name given to the island by whom in 1505?

They built a fort at Colombo in 1517 and pushed the Sinhalese king inland to Kandy by 1592.

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

Evidence of human settlement on the island goes back 125,000 years and possibly half a million.

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

The kingdom was founded in 380 BCE under Pandukabhaya and fell when the Cholas sacked the city in the 11th century.

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

The change came on 7 September 1978; the country had become a republic, dropping 'Ceylon', six years earlier.

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

His National People's Power alliance then won a two-thirds parliamentary majority that November.

Until which year did the British Royal Navy remain stationed at Trincomalee after independence?

The deep natural harbour had been a prize for colonial powers since the Portuguese era.

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

About 22% of its mammals are endemic too, and the island shares one of the first 18 global biodiversity hotspots with India's Western Ghats.