| Location | An island in the Indian Ocean and separated from India by the Palk Strait |
| Capital | Colombo |
| Language | Sinhalese (official), Tamil (official) and English |
| Climate | Tropical Climate with little variations in humidity and conditions. |
| Currency | Sri Lankan Rupee (SLR) |
| Country Code | 94 |
| Activities | Beach tours, hiking, wildlife tours, diving exercises, mountain hikes, water sports, excursions. |
Other activities include mountain hikes, wildlife tours, diving exercises, water sports and so on. In fact, the beaches are so magnificent to behold that just lazing around on one of them can be a wonderful experience.
You will also be able to visit some of its most famous attractions like the Nuwara Eliya hill resort, the cascading waterfalls like the Devon and St Clair's, the Horton Plains, Sri Pada and so on. Besides, you can go on excursions to some of its historic sites like Mihintale, Dambula and Kandy.
Geographic Details of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is a small pear shaped country located right at the southern tip of India. It is also known as the "tear drop island" because of the way it looks in the map of the world or Asia. Its geographic co-ordinates are 7 degrees north and 81 degrees east. Its total area is 65,610 square kilometers.
The land area is 64,740 square kilometers and the area covered by water is 870 square kilometers. Its coastline is 1,340 kilometers long and it has no land boundary. The territorial sea of Sri Lanka is 12 nautical miles and its contiguous zone is 24 nautical miles. The exclusive economic zone of Sri Lanka is 200 nautical miles long and its continental shelf is 200 nautical miles.
The terrain of Sri Lanka is primarily flat, ranging from rolling plain to flat. In the interiors of the south central region of Sri Lanka there are the mountains. The highest point in Sri Lanka is Pidurutalagala, which is 2,524 meters long.
How to Reach
Sri Lanka is easily accessible by air from all the major countries in the world. The international airport at Colombo receives direct flights from Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Besides, a huge number of flights from Indian cities like Chennai, Mumbai, Trichy and Thiruvananthapuram also fly to Sri Lanka regularly.
Climate of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has a tropical weather that is dominated by monsoon throughout the year. The north east part of Sri Lanka experiences rainfall from December to March and the south western part experiences rainfall from June to October. Sri Lanka is well known for various natural hazards like tornadoes and cyclones that keep recurring at definite intervals.
Natural Resources of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is gifted with plenty of natural resources. Among the natural resources of Sri Lanka are limestone, phosphates, graphite, clay, mineral sands, hydropower and gems. As per statistics 13.96% of Sri Lanka's land is arable and 15.24% is used for growing permanent crops. As much as 7,430 square kilometers. The total renewable water resources 50 cubic kilometers. The total freshwater withdrawal per year, on an average, is 12.61 cubic kilometers. Out of this 2% each is reserved for domestic and industrial uses. This boils down to 608 cubic meters per capita per year.
Environmental Issues in Sri Lanka
There are a number of important environmental issues in Sri Lanka like deforestation, pollution of freshwater resources from industrial wastes and sewage runoff, soil erosion, waste disposal, wildlife threatened by urbanization and poaching, air pollution in Colombo and coastal degradation resulting from mining activities and increase in pollution.
Sri Lanka is also party to a number of international environmental agreements like biodiversity, hazardous wastes, climate change, law of the sea, climate change-Kyoto protocol, ozone layer protection, desertification, ship pollution, endangered species, wetlands and environmental modification. It has also signed Marine Life Conservation but it is yet to ratify it.
Population of Sri Lanka
The population of Sri Lanka is 21,128,772. 24.1% of the Sri Lankan population is between the age group of 0 to 14 years. Out of this number the male population is 2,596,463 and the female population is 2,495,136. 68% of the Sri Lankan population falls between the age group of 15 to 64 years. Out of this number the male population is 7,019,446 and the female population is 7,340,809. 7.9% of the Sri Lankan population falls between the age group of 65 years and more. Out of this number the male population is 783,823 and the female population is 893,096.
The median age in Sri Lanka is 30.4 years. For men the average age is 29.5 years and for women the average age is 31.4 years. The rate of growth of population in Sri Lanka is 0.943%. The birth rate in Sri Lanka is 16.63 births per 1,000 people and the mortality rate in Sri Lanka is 6.07 deaths per 1,000 people.
At birth the sex ratio in Sri Lanka is 1.04 male to 1 female and below the 15 year age group the sex ratio is 1.04 male to 1 female. In the age group of 15 to 64 years the sex ratio is 0.96 male to 1 female. In the age group of 65 years and more the ratio is 0.88 male to 1 female. In overall Sri Lankan population the sex ratio is 0.97 male to 1 female.
In Sri Lanka infant mortality rate is 19.01 deaths per 1,000 live births. For males the rate is 20.76 deaths per 1,000 live births and for females the rate is 17.17 deaths per 1,000 live births. The life expectancy at birth for Sri Lanka is 74.97 years. For males this figure is 72.95 years and for females the figure is 77.08 years. In Sri Lanka the total fertility rate is 2.02 children per woman. There are almost 3,500 people living with AIDS in Sri Lanka but this is lesser than 0.1% of the entire population.
The major diseases in Sri Lanka are food or waterborne diseases like bacterial diarrhea and hepatitis A, water contact disease and leptospirosis and vectorborne disease like dengue fever and malaria. 73.8% of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese, 7.2% are moors. Indian Tamils make up 4.6% of the population and Sri Lankan Tamils amount to 3.9%. 69.1% of the Sri Lankans follow Buddhism and 7.6% practice Islam. 7.1% are Hindu in Sri Lanka and 6.2% are Christians.
Sinhala is the national and official language of Sri Lanka and is spoken by 74% people. Tamil is spoken by 18% people. 90.7% of Sri Lankans are literate. 92.3% of males are literate and 89.1% of women are literate.
Government of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has a republican government. Its capital is Colombo and there are eight provinces - Central, Sabaragamuwa, North Central, Southern, North Eastern, Uva, North Western and Western. It became independent from the British on the 4th of February, 1948, which is also celebrated as a national holiday. It adopted its constitution on the 16th of August, 1978 and certified it on 31st of August, 1978.
The legal system of Sri Lanka incorporates a number of legal systems like English common law, Kandyan, Roman-Dutch and Jaffna Tamil law. People who are under 18 years old are not allowed to cast votes. Mahinda Rajapaksa is the chief of state and Ratnasiri Wickremanayeke is the prime minister. The parliamentary system in Sri Lanka is unicameral and elections are held after 6 years.
There is a Supreme Court in Sri Lanka and a Court of Appeals. Following are the main parties in Sri Lanka:
Economy of Sri Lanka
The GDP(purchasing power parity) of Sri Lanka is $82.02 billion and GDP(official exchange rate) is $30.01 billion. The real growth rate of GDP of Sri Lanka is 6.8%. and per capita GDP is $4,000. The agricultural sector makes up 11.7% of the GDP of Sri Lanka and 29.9% is made up by the industrial sector. The services sector makes up 58.4%.
There are 7.489 million workers in Sri Lanka. 34.3% of these work in agriculture, 40.4% work in services and 25.3% work in industry. The rate of unemployment is 6%. The investments make up 24.7% of the GDP of Sri Lanka. Public debt in Sri Lanka amounts to 85.8% of the GDP and the rate of inflation of consumer prices is 15.8%. The stock of money in Sri Lanka is $2.465 billion.
The major agricultural products of Sri Lanka are as follows:
The main industrial products of Sri Lanka are as follows:
The growth rate of industrial production in Sri Lanka is 7.6%. Consumption of oil in Sri Lanka is 0 barrels per day and consumption is 84,000 barrels per day. It exports 691.5 barrels per day and imports 82,390 barrels per day.
The goods exported by Sri Lanka are textiles and apparel, tea and spices, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, coconut products, rubber manufactures and fish. Its major export partners are USA, Germany, UK, Italy and India. It imports a number of goods and services, important among whom are textile fabrics, foodstuffs, mineral products, machinery, petroleum and transportation equipment. The currency of Sri Lanka is Sri Lanka rupee, LKR.
Military of Sri Lanka
There are three main branches of the Sri Lankan military - army, air force and navy. 5,458,720 men, between the age of 16 to 49 are available to serve the military of Sri Lanka but 4,477,437 are considered fit for this job. 5,594,006 women between the age group of 16 to 49 are there for serving the Sri Lankan military but 4,683,716 women are regarded fit to do so. Every year 174,065 men and 168,593 women attain the age to serve the military.
Communications and Transportation in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is well equipped with a number of radio stations all over the country and standard internet connections in place. There has been significant improvement in the telephone services over the years. The transportation system is well developed too.
