Sri Lanka Frontier · About Sri Lanka
About Sri Lanka
The essentials on the country itself, where it sits, who lives there, the language and the faith, the money and the food, and the land that runs from the palm-fringed coast to the central highlands.
- ~22M
- people
- 2,000+
- years of history
- 2,524 m
- Pidurutalagala, high point
- 8
- UNESCO World Heritage sites
Sri Lanka is a small country with an outsized story, and an easy one to enjoy once you know its shape. These short reads cover the background worth having before a trip, the geography and the people, how to get by with the language and the money, and what fills the table.
Where Is Sri Lanka? Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, just off the south-east tip of India across the Palk Strait. Its exact location, size, distance from India, coordinates, time zone and place on the world's shipping routes. Map of Sri Lanka A plain-language map of Sri Lanka: the Cultural Triangle, the Hill Country, the South Coast, Colombo and the west, the East Coast, the far North, and the wildlife parks, how far apart they are, and how the island's two monsoons split the year between its coasts. The People of Sri Lanka Who are the Sri Lankan people? The island's communities, Sinhalese, Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Muslims and Moors, Burghers and the indigenous Veddas, their languages, faiths, diaspora, and the warmth of daily life. Language in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka's languages for travellers: Sinhala and Tamil as the two official tongues, English as the link language, the beautiful scripts, and a friendly phrasebook of Sinhala and Tamil words worth knowing. Religion in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka's faiths: Theravada Buddhism given the foremost place, alongside Hinduism, Islam and Christianity; the Sacred Tooth Relic, Adam's Peak and the ancient Bo tree, plus temple etiquette for visitors. Sri Lankan Food and Drink A guide to Sri Lankan food and drink: rice and curry, hoppers and string hoppers, kottu roti, pol sambol, dhal, jackfruit curry, Jaffna crab, short eats, Ceylon tea and king coconut, with the dishes to try first and how to handle the chilli heat. Money in Sri Lanka: The Rupee Using money in Sri Lanka: the rupee (LKR), a largely cash economy, ATMs and card acceptance, why some park fees and tickets are priced in US dollars, bargaining, tipping norms, everyday prices, and how the post-2022 crisis has settled with tourism firmly recovered. Sri Lanka's Land and Nature Sri Lanka's landscapes and wild places: the central tea highlands, Adam's Peak and Horton Plains, the Sinharaja rainforest, the dry-zone national parks, some 1,340 kilometres of coast, and one of the richest concentrations of wildlife on Earth, leopards, elephants, whales and endemic birds.