Sri Lanka
Legend as well as history record that Sri Lanka has always delighted visitors to its shores. For countless centuries its fragrant spices, priceless gems & Pearls, legendary beauty, sublime culture & friendly people, captivated princes, poets, traders, empire-builders and admirers. The island`s beauty, abundance & culture earned for it much praise and many admiring names. Ancient Moorish merchants called Sri Lanka the “Isle of Delight”. To early Arab traders it was “Serendib”, the land of happy surprises, and to the medieval explorer Marco Polo, “the finest island in all the world”. American novelist Mark Twain called it “beautiful, and most sumptuously tropical”.
Mahatma Gandhi was convinced that Sri Lanka natural beauty was “unsurpassed on the face of the earth”
Today too, this beauty, abundance and variety, magic and magnetism enchants visitors. A small tropical island set in the sunlight surf of the Indian Ocean, high elevations in its central highlands produce sudden, surprising and delightful geographical contrasts and variety. Thus 160km from the very tropical sea-port commercial capital Colombo, the hill-resort of NuwaraEliya often has hoarfrost on chilly nights.
Sri Lanka Country Profile
- Size : 65,610 Sq. km.
- Capital : Sri Jayawardenepura
- Commercial Capital : Colombo
- Currency : Sri Lankan Rupee
- Population : 21.44 Million
- Population Density : 325/km (people per sq km)
- Life expectancy at birth : 74 Female, 69 Male
- Language : Sinhala, Tamil, English (English is widely spoken throughout Sri Lanka, with the exception of remote villages.
- Ethnic Mix : Sinhalese – 74%; Tamils – 18%; Muslims – 7% burghers (descendants of Dutch & Portuguese colonists) and others 1%
- Religions : Buddhism – 70%, Hinduism – 16%, Christianity – 7%, Islam – 7%
- Climate : Lowlands Tropical average 270C, central Hills Cooler, with temperatures to 140C the South-west monsoon brings rain to the western southern& Central regions from May to July, while the north-eastern monsoon occurs in the north & east in December and January. Sri Lanka boosts a good climate for holiday-makers throughout year.
- Major Exports : Textiles & garments, Petroleum products, Tea & Rubber Products, Gems, Jewellery & Spices
- Working Week : Sri Lanka works a five-day week, from Monday to Friday.
- Business Hours : Government Office 09.00hr – 17.00hr Monday to Friday Banks 09.00hr -15.00hr Monday to Friday Post Office - 08.30hr – 15.00hr Monday to Friday _ 08.30hr – 13.00hr Saturday
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea.