Sri Lanka may not be as mysterious to our readership as some of the other places we’ve lived. Still, most of you probably don’t know a great deal about it. So here are 10 things we bet you didn’t know about Sri Lanka!
- The country is 65,610 km2 (25,300 m2) – about the size of West Virginia, or Wales – but it contains eight UNESCO world heritage sites. About 21 million people live here, 2/3 of them Sinhalese and 1/4 of them Tamil.
- Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the world’s first female prime minister in 1960. She served three (non-consecutive) terms). Sri Lanka also boasts the first female ruler in Asia, the ruthless Queen Anula (r. 47-42 BCE). And the polyandrous (multiple husbands) kingdom of Kandy was the last to surrender to the British.
- Given its central location, lots of people have stopped by Sri Lanka through the ages. In fact, Adam stepped here on his way out of the Garden of Eden (or maybe it was Buddha, Shiva, or St. Thomas…) and left a giant footprint on Adam’s Peak. For centuries, it was on the silk road and part of the spice trade. And the Arabs called it Serendip, Island of Jewels, whence Horace Walpole coined the English word serendipity.
- The time in Sri Lanka is 30 minutes off from most places in the world (as is India’s). Perhaps because India was halfway between the two meridians when time zones came into being. And Sri Lanka followed suit.
- The flag of Sri Lanka – one of the oldest in the world – contains maroon for the Sinhalese Buddhists, orange for the Tamil Hindus, blue-green for the various Muslims, and a saffron border representing other religious groups. It also features a lion with a sword and four bodhi leaves, representing the four Buddhist virtues of loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, and joy. (In 1972, these leaves replaced spears.)
- But there are no lions in Sri Lanka, and there is little evidence that there ever have been. On the other hand, there are about 20,000 elephants and about 800 leopards.
- Over 1 million land mines were laid in the nineties during Asia’s longest-lasting civil war, and as many as 70,000 people were killed during this war.
- Like many former British colonies, Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948. Before the British, the Portuguese and the Dutch ruled parts of the island. (See also our post on the history of Sri Lanka.)
- Sri Lanka’s most important exports have included coffee, tea, rubber, coconuts, sugar, cinnamon, and jewels. Tea is still a major export; 1/4 of the world’s supply comes from here, and it’s where Thomas Lipton made his fortune. 80-90% of the world’s cinnamon also comes from here.
- Literacy is high – 92-96%, the highest in South Asia – and the population is young: 49% under the age of 30.
There’s our list of the 10 things we bet you didn’t know about Sri Lanka. We hope you enjoyed it!
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