Welcome to Sri Lanka Travel Guide ... your free internet travel
guide to the tropical paradise of Sri Lanka.
Our goal is to help you plan the perfect trip to this beautiful island.
Inside you will find lots of tourist information, as
well as our extensive photo gallery of Sri Lanka.
If you are planning your first
trip to Sri Lanka or you will be a return visitor, we hope the information that we provide is
helpful.
If this is your first visit to
our site, be sure to view our photo gallery as you will see the wonders
that await you on your trip to Sri Lanka.
History of Sri Lanka
The history of civilization of Sri Lanka is around 2500 years old. Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon in the earlier times. Amongst the first settlers of Sri Lanka was the nomadic Veddahs. The Sinhalese overpowered Veddahs in the 5th or 6th BC. Mahindra, the son of the Indian Mauryan emperor Ashoka, introduced Buddhism in the island nation. Soon, Buddhism became the established religion of Sri Lanka.Portuguese arrived in Colombo in 1505 and took formal control of the island by 1597. But the Portuguese failed to dislocate Sinhalese Kingdom, who with the help of Dutch expelled the Portuguese from Sri Lanka in 1658. The British arrived in Sri Lanka in 1796. In 1815, Britain defeated Sinhalese kingdom and became the first European power to rule the Island.
The British made English as the national language of Sri Lanka. The island nation achieved independence in 1948 and adopted democratic system of governance. In 1972, the country became republic and received the official name of Sri Lanka.
Since the early 1980s, there has been an ongoing ethnic conflct in Sri Lanka between the Sri Lankan government and members of the Tamil ethnic group. This conflict resulted in death of thousands of people. A cease fire was declared in 2002, but the violence still continues on and off.
Sri Lanka is divided into 9 provinces, which are further sub-divided into districts. The various provinces of Sri Lanka include, Kandy, Anuradhapura, Trincomalee, Kurunegala, Galle, Badulla, Ratnapura and Colombo.
