![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090117011132im_/http://i.infoplease.com/images/clearpix.gif) |
Travel to Sri Lanka — Unbiased reviews and
great deals from TripAdvisor
Sri Lanka
Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
President: Mahinda Rajapakse (2005)
Prime Minister: Ratnasiri
Wickremanayaka (2005)
Current government officials
Land area: 24,996 sq mi (64,740 sq km);
total area: 25,332 sq mi (65,610 sq km)
Population (2007 est.): 20,926,315
(growth rate: 1.0%); birth rate: 17.0/1000; infant mortality rate:
19.5/1000; life expectancy: 74.8; density per sq mi: 809
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Colombo, 2,436,000 (metro. area), 656,100
(city proper). Legislative and judicial capital: Sri
Jayawardenepura Kotte, 118,300
Other large cities: Dehiwala-Mount
Lavinia 214,300; Moratuwa, 181,000; Kandy, 112,400
Monetary unit: Sri Lanka rupee
Languages:
Sinhala 74% (official and national), Tamil 18%
(national), other 8%; English is commonly used in government and
spoken competently by about 10%
Ethnicity/race:
Sinhalese 73.8%, Sri Lankan Moors 7.2%, Indian
Tamil 4.6%, Sri Lankan Tamil 3.9%, other 0.5%, unspecified 10%
(2001)
Religions:
Buddhist 70%, Islam 8%, Hindu 7%, Christian 6%
(2001)
Literacy rate: 92% (2003 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007
est.): $81.29 billion; per capita $4,100. Real growth rate:
6.3%. Inflation: 19.7%. Unemployment: 5.7%.
Arable land: 14%. Agriculture: rice, sugarcane,
grains, pulses, oilseed, spices, tea, rubber, coconuts; milk, eggs,
hides, beef; fish. Labor force: 8.08 million; services 45%,
agriculture 38%, industry 17% (1998 est.). Industries:
processing of rubber, tea, coconuts, tobacco and other agricultural
commodities; telecommunications, insurance, banking; clothing,
textiles; cement, petroleum refining. Natural resources:
limestone, graphite, mineral sands, gems, phosphates, clay,
hydropower. Exports: $6.442 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.):
textiles and apparel, tea and spices; diamonds, emeralds, rubies;
coconut products, rubber manufactures, fish. Imports: $8.37
billion f.o.b. (2005 est.): textile fabrics, mineral products,
petroleum, foodstuffs, machinery and transportation equipment.
Major trading partners: U.S., UK, India, Germany, Singapore,
Hong Kong, China, Iran, Japan, Malaysia (2004).
Communications: Telephones: main lines
in use: 494,509 (1998); mobile cellular: 228,604 (1999). Radio
broadcast stations: AM 26, FM 45, shortwave 1 (1998).
Radios: 3.85 million (1997). Television broadcast
stations: 21 (1997). Televisions: 1.53 million (1997).
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 5 (2000). Internet
users: 121,500 (2001).
Transportation: Railways: total: 1,508
km (2002). Highways: total: 96,695 km; paved: 91,860 km;
unpaved: 4,835 km (1999). Waterways: 430 km; navigable by
shallow-draft craft. Ports and harbors: Colombo, Galle,
Jaffna, Trincomalee. Airports: 15 (2002).
International disputes: none.
Member of Commonwealth of Nations
Major sources and definitions
|
|
Geography
An island in the Indian Ocean off the southeast tip of India, Sri Lanka
is about half the size of Alabama. Most of the land is flat and rolling;
mountains in the south-central region rise to over 8,000 ft (2,438 m).
Government
Republic.
History
Indo-Aryan emigration from India in the 5th century B.C. came to form the largest ethnic group on Sri
Lanka today, the Sinhalese. Tamils, the second-largest ethnic group on the
island, were originally from the Tamil region of India and emigrated
between the 3rd century B.C. and A.D. 1200. Until colonial powers controlled Ceylon
(the country's name until 1972), Sinhalese and Tamil rulers fought for
dominance over the island. The Tamils, primarily Hindus, claimed the
northern section of the island and the Sinhalese, who are predominantly
Buddhist, controlled the south. In 1505 the Portuguese took possession of
Ceylon until the Dutch India Company usurped control (1658–1796).
The British took over in 1796, and Ceylon became an English Crown colony
in 1802. The British developed coffee, tea, and rubber plantations. On
Feb. 4, 1948, after pressure from Ceylonese nationalist leaders (which
briefly unified the Tamil and Sinhalese), Ceylon became a self-governing
dominion of the Commonwealth of Nations.
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike became prime minister in 1956 and championed
Sinhalese nationalism, making Sinhala the country's only official language
and including state support of Buddhism, further marginalizing the Tamil
minority. He was assassinated in 1959 by a Buddhist monk. His widow,
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became the world's first female prime minister in
1960. The name Ceylon was changed to Sri Lanka
(“resplendent island”) on May 22, 1972.
The Tamil minority's mounting resentment toward the Sinhalese
majority's monopoly on political and economic power, exacerbated by
cultural and religious differences, erupted in bloody violence in 1983.
Tamil rebel groups, the strongest of which were the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, began a civil war to fight for separate
nation.
President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated at a May Day political
rally in 1993, when a Tamil rebel detonated explosives strapped to
himself. Tamil extremists have frequently resorted to terrorist attacks
against civilians. The next president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, vowed to
restore peace to the country. In Dec. 1999, she was herself wounded in a
terrorist attack. By early 2000, 18 years of war had claimed the lives of
more than 64,000, mostly civilians.
After Dec. 2001 elections, Ranil Wickremesinghe, a longtime bitter
rival of President Kumaratunga, was sworn in as prime minister.
Wickremesinghe's victory precipitated a formal cease-fire with the Tamil
rebels, signed in Feb. 2002. In September talks, the government lifted its
ban on the group, and the Tigers dropped their demand for an independent
Tamil state. Another significant breakthrough came in December when the
Tigers and the government struck a power-sharing deal that would give the
rebels regional autonomy. But negotiations in 2003 achieved little.
Intense political rivalry threatened the peace process. In Nov. 2003,
President Kumaratunga, convinced that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was
too soft in his negotiations with the Tigers, wrested away some of his
powers. In Feb. 2004, the president dissolved parliament and called for
elections in the hope of further eroding the power of the prime minister.
The gamble paid off for Kumaratunga—her United People's Freedom
Alliance won April's parliamentary elections, and Wickremesinghe was
replaced by a new prime minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, a high-ranking member
of Kumaratunga's party.
On Dec. 26, 2004, a tremendously powerful tsunami ravaged 12 Asian
countries. About 38,000 people were reported killed in Sri Lanka.
President Kumaratunga and the Tamil Tigers reached a deal in June 2005 to
share about $4.5 billion in international aid to rebuild the country. But
intensifying violence in the eastern part of the country threatened the
cease-fire and jeopardized the aid package. In Aug. 2005, Foreign Minister
Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated and the government declared a state
of emergency.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse won November's presidential elections,
taking 50% of the vote to former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's
48%. Rajapakse is expected to take a hard line with the Tamil Tigers.
Rajapakse appointed Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka as prime minister.
In 2006, repeated violations of the 2002 cease-fire on both sides
turned into outright war. Since April 2006, about 1,000 soldiers and
civilians have been killed, and 135,000, mostly Tamils, have been
displaced. Efforts by Norway, which brokered the 2002 cease-fire, to bring
both sides to the negotiating table were unsuccessful throughout the
summer.
Fighting between the rebels and government troops continued into 2007.
After a weeks of deadly battles, the military took control of rebel-held
regions of eastern Sri Lanka in March, leaving tens of thousands more
civilians displaced. In April, the Tamil Tigers launched their first air
raid, using small airplanes to bomb an air force base near Colombo. An
attack by the Sri Lankan air force in November killed the leader of the
Tigers' political wing, S. P. Tamilselvan. Amid continued fighting, the
government abrogated the cease-fire in January 2008.
Sri Lanka was rocked by a series of suicide bombs on the eve of and
during the country's celebration of its 60th anniversary of independence
in February. Nearly 40 people died in the attacks. April was a particulary
bloody month in Sri Lanka. Indeed, highways minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle
was killed in a bombing attributed to Tamil Tiger rebels. Later in the
month, more than 40 soldiers and 100 Tamil Tiger rebels died in a battle
in the Jaffna peninsula.
The conflict betwween the Sri Lankan and the Tamil Tigers reached a
pivotal point in the fall, when the military launched an airstrike on
Tamil headquarters in early October in Kilinochi. In addition, ground
troops were closing in on the rebels. In January 2009, the Sri Lankan
government captured the northern town of Kilinochchi, which for ten years
had been the administrative headquarters of the Tamil Tigers. President
Rajapakse urged the rebels to surrender.
See also Encyclopedia: Sri Lanka. U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics
www.statistics.gov.lk .
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Sri Lanka from Infoplease:
- Sri Lanka: meaning and definitions - Sri Lanka: Definition and Pronunciation
- Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka Sri Lanka [Sinhalese,=resplendent land], formerly Ceylon, ancient Taprobane, officially ...
- Sri Lanka - Map of Sri Lanka & articles on flags, geography, history, statistics, disasters current events, and international relations.
- Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka Profile: People, Government, Political Conditions, Foreign Relations
- Sri Lanka: Bibliography - Bibliography See L. A. Mills, Ceylon under British Rule, 1795–1932 (1965); N. E. Weerasooria, ...
|
|