Sri Lanka

Known as “Serendib” to the Arabs and “Ceilao” to the Portuguese, Sri Lanka has a recorded dynastic history stretching back 3,000 years. It was mentioned in the Hindu Ramayana as early as the 5th century BC. Two centuries later the Mauryans brought Buddhism. After the Chola invasions, the Jaffna kingdom was established in the medieval period.

In the early 16th century, Sri Lanka became a principle hub for Portuguese, and later, Dutch trade with all of South Asia. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British East India Company took control. In April 1942, a Japanese attack on the British Eastern Fleet that had withdrawn to Tincomalee from Singapore was successfully thwarted. Sri Lanka resumed its status as an independent state in 1948. It exports rubber, cinnamon, coffee, sugar and Ceylon tea to this day.

With a population of over 20 million and a standard of living traditionally higher than its neighbours, Sri Lanka has had universal suffrage since 1931, making it the oldest democracy in South Asia. But it has also endured repeated bouts of sectarian violence, most recently in the form of a separatist campaign in the North that was defeated in 2009.

Sri Lanka has a renowned history of devotional architecture, art, dance and theatre, which draw on rich traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Its literature is influenced as much by the 3,000-year-old Rig Veda as by the Pali Canon, the scripture of Theravada Buddhism codified in Sri Lanka in the 1st century BC. Its artisans are expert weavers, dyers, cloth-, metal- and wood-workers.

River Kelani in Kitulgala, in West Sri Lanka