Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's written history begins with the arrival of Indo-Aryan settlers and the founding of the Anuradhapura kingdom in the centuries BC. Buddhism was introduced from India in the third century BC and became central to Sinhalese identity; the great irrigation reservoirs and monastic cities of Anuradhapura and later Polonnaruwa date from this long classical era. Tamil-speaking communities, with links to southern India, settled especially in the north, and a Tamil kingdom formed around Jaffna.

European powers came for cinnamon and strategic position: the Portuguese from 1505, the Dutch who displaced them from 1658, and the British, who took the whole island — including the interior Kingdom of Kandy, which had resisted the others — by 1815. The British built the plantation economy, first coffee then tea, and brought Tamil labourers from India to work it.

Ceylon became independent in 1948 and a republic named Sri Lanka in 1972. Post-independence policies favouring the Sinhalese majority and the Sinhala language fuelled Tamil grievance, and from 1983 a full civil war pitted the state against the separatist Tamil Tigers (LTTE). It lasted 26 years, killed an estimated 100,000 people, included the assassination of leaders and the use of child soldiers and suicide bombings, and ended in 2009 with a bloody military victory amid allegations of war crimes on both sides. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami had killed some 35,000 Sri Lankans in between. In 2019 the Easter Sunday bombings killed over 260. A currency and debt crisis in 2022 brought fuel queues, blackouts, and the mass "Aragalaya" protests that drove the president to flee and resign.

The population is about three-quarters Sinhalese (mostly Theravada Buddhist), with a Tamil minority (mostly Hindu), Muslims (known as Moors), and Christians of both Sinhalese and Tamil background. Buddhism has a special constitutional status, and the dagoba (stupa), the bodhi tree, and the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy are focal points of religious life.

Custom places weight on respect for elders and monks, modest dress at temples (covered shoulders and knees, shoes and hats removed), and using the right hand. Poya days — full-moon Buddhist holidays each month — are public holidays, and the sale of alcohol and meat is restricted on them.

Astrology, auspicious timing, and rituals around birth, the first solid food, and the new year are widely observed. Cricket is the mass sporting passion, and the national team's successes are a source of unifying pride.

About 22 million people live on the island. Colombo and its suburbs form the commercial heart, the hill country is tea estates and market gardens, the dry zone is paddy and reservoirs, and the coasts mix fishing, tourism, and coconut. The north and east, worst hit by the war, lag in development and still carry its social wounds.

The economy depends on garment exports, tea, tourism, remittances from workers in the Gulf, and, increasingly, IT services. The 2022 crash — caused by debt, tax cuts, a foreign-exchange squeeze, and a disastrous overnight fertiliser ban — pushed many households into hardship, and recovery under an IMF programme has meant higher taxes and prices.

Life outside the cities is largely rural and agricultural, family-centred, and shaped by the temple or kovil calendar.

The staple is "rice and curry" — a mound of rice ringed by several curries of vegetables, lentils (parippu), fish or chicken, a sambol (often pol sambol, grated coconut with chilli and lime), and a crisp papadam. Sri Lankan curries are distinct from Indian ones, built on roasted curry powder, coconut milk, pandan, curry leaf, and goraka (a souring fruit).

Signature dishes include kottu (chopped roti stir-fried with egg and vegetables, made to a rhythmic clatter on a hot plate), hoppers (appa, bowl-shaped fermented pancakes, often with an egg), string hoppers, lamprais (a Dutch-Burgher rice parcel baked in banana leaf), and fiery devilled dishes. Short eats — fried snacks — fill tea shops.

Tea is the national drink, taken strong and sweet with milk. King coconut (thambili) water is sold roadside, and arrack, distilled from coconut flower sap, is the local spirit.

The Cultural Triangle in the centre holds the ancient capitals of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, the rock citadel of Sigiriya with its frescoes and mirror wall, the cave temples of Dambulla, and the sacred hill of Mihintale. Kandy, the last royal capital, has the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and a lake ringed by hills.

The hill country is tea plantations, waterfalls, and cool towns — Nuwara Eliya with its colonial bungalows, Ella with the Nine Arches Bridge and Little Adam's Peak, and the pilgrimage climb up Adam's Peak (Sri Pada). The train ride through it is one of the world's most scenic.

Wildlife is a major draw: leopards at Yala, elephants at Udawalawe and the Minneriya "gathering", and blue and sperm whales off Mirissa and Trincomalee. The south and west coasts have the beaches and surf — Unawatuna, Mirissa, Weligama, Hikkaduwa — with the Dutch-walled town of Galle as their anchor, while Arugam Bay in the east is the surf capital in the northern-hemisphere summer.