About Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is a beautiful island with a colourful mixture of religious cultures, races and geography. The tropical meeting place of old and new and remains a true paradise on earth. Ruins of over 2000 years of old civilization, temples and monuments, wildlife, parks, colourful festivals, pageantry, mountains, rivers and waterfalls, captures the eye of both locals and foreigners, young and old alike. It is an island throbbing with excitement of living. The sun and serendipity follows you wherever you wander in Sri Lanka. The beautiful island with its hills, valleys, rivers, lakes and cascading waterfalls, mountain slopes covered with mist, National parks like Wilpattu, Yala and Kumana, Botanical gardens such as Peradeniya,and Haggala, historical ruins and places of worship like Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Sigiriya, Yapahuwa and Knady, trees in full blooms, some laden with luscious fruits, Sri Lanka’s fascinating variety in climate, landscape with hot, cold temperate climatic zones, cultural heritage, like religious festivals, processions, low country and up country dancing, traditional healing like “Khomba Kankariya and 18 sanniya”,gems at Ratnapura have won the admiration of the whole world.
Name: Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.
Capital : Sri Jayawardenepura
Commercial Capital : Colombo
Independence: February 4, 1948
President : Mr. Maithripala Sirisena
Prime Minister : Mr. Ranil Wikkramasighe
Official languages : Sinhala, Tamil
Other languages : English
Population : 20,927,315
Ethnic Groups : Sinhalese 74%, Tamil 18%, Moor 7%, Burgher, Malay, and Vedda 1%.
National Anthem : “Sri Lanka Matha” composed by late Mr. Ananda Samarakoon.
Literacy Rate : 92.5%
Currency : Sri Lankan Rupee(LKR)
Time zone : UTC +5 1/2
Calling Code : 94
National Flower : The Blue Water Lily (Nymphaea stellata)
Life Expectancy at Birth : 76.4 female, 71.7 male
Industries :
Processing of rubber, tea, coconuts, and other agricultural commodities; clothing, cement, petroleum refining, textiles, tobacco.
Agriculture – Products:
Rice, sugarcane, grains, pulses, oilseed, roots, spices, tea, rubber, coconuts; milk, eggs, hides, meat.
Sri Lanka is an island in the center of the Indian Ocean and is situated towards South East of India, a little above the equator. It lies between 5’-10’ of latitude north and 79’-81’ of longitude east and is separated from the southern extremity of the peninsular of India,by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. The width of the intervening sea at the narrowest point being about 32Km.It has a land area of 65,610 km².From north to south it has a maximum length of 432 km. The widest point between Dondra and Point Pedro is the Colombo west coast,and Sangaman mountains in east and it widest point, measures 224km.The centre of the island is rather on mountainous area. From the point of view of relief the island may be divided into 3 categories, The Coastal plain, The Peneplain,The Central hills.
| Highest Peak: | Pidurutalagala – 2524 meters. | ||||
| Longest River: | Mahaweli River – 335 km. | ||||
| Highest Water Fall: | Bambarakanda – 241 meters. | ||||
Sri Lanka’s fascinating variety in climate and landscape, and rich cultural heritage has for many centuries attracted travellers from all over the world. Although Sri Lanka is situated close to the equator, and though it is surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the centre of the island is high mountainous area. The rainfall is sufficient. The temperature does not reach above 98.40, which is bearable to the people. Generally the temperature in Colombo is between 80’F-90’F, Kandy 77’F, Diyatalawa 68’F, Nuwara-Eliya 60’F. Sometimes the temperature drops down to 32’F and even frost can occur.Sri Lanka receives rainfall mainly from the monsoons. South west monsoon brings rain from May to September. During this period the regions in the west, Southwest gets rain, Northeast monsoon visits from December to February. Regions in the north, east, southeast and northeast receives this rain. Other than this, depression in the Bay of Bengal and cyclones bring conventional rain in spells. As a result, depression brings heavily laiden rain clouds, causing torrential rains and sudden floods to some regions quite often. The average rainfall is between 1250mm -5537mm.