An island in the Indian Ocean off the southeast tip of India, Sri Lanka is about half the size of Alabama. Republic Govt.

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.

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.

Land area: 24,996 sq mi (64,740 sq km); total area: 25,332 sq mi (65,610 sq km),
Population (2012 est.): 21,481,334 (growth rate: 0.913%); birth rate: 17.04/1000; infant mortality rate: 9.47/1000; life expectancy: 75.94; density per sq mi: 836.6,
Capital and largest city (2011 est.): Colombo, 5.6 million (metro. area), 752,993 (city proper). Legislative and judicial capital: Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, 135,806,
Other large cities: Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia 245,974; Moratuwa, 207,755; Negombo, 127,754 Monetary unit: Sri Lanka rupee