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The essentials of Sri Lanka in eight easy-going questions. No need to be an expert: the whole family can join in and discover something new.
Palm-shade dreamer 0–3 · Hill-country rambler 4–6 · Island insider 7–8
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Sri Lanka's flag, often called the Lion Flag, shows a golden lion holding a sword on a dark red background, with a golden leaf in each corner and a green and an orange stripe beside it. Funnily enough, no wild lions live on the island today.
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Only a narrow, shallow stretch of sea, the Palk Strait, separates Sri Lanka from India. During the last Ice Age the sea was so much lower that this strait was dry land, and it only filled with water again around 7,000 years ago.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Sri Lanka is one of the world's biggest tea producers, and tea planting began there in 1867. It took over the hills after a plant disease wiped out the island's coffee farms from 1869 onwards, so planters switched to tea instead.
Photo: Adbar, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Colombo is Sri Lanka's biggest city and main port, and one old explanation says its name comes from Sinhala words meaning 'harbour with leafy mango trees'. The country's parliament, though, meets in Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, a town right next door.
Photo: Gihanud2001, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
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As the water level drops, around 150 to 200 elephants come to graze on the fresh grass at the lake's edge, a sight known as the elephant gathering. The lake itself is man-made: a king had it built about 1,700 years ago to store water for the dry months.
Photo: Sumudusoyza007, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Workers peel off the thin inner bark, which curls up into rolls as it dries, and Sri Lanka still grows about 80 to 90 percent of the world's true cinnamon. Long ago, traders kept its source a secret and told tall tales, such as that cinnamon was collected from the nests of giant birds.
Photo: Simon A. Eugster, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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A typical plate is a mound of boiled or steamed rice with several small curries of fish or meat, vegetables, lentils or even fruit. On the side there is often a spicy sambol, such as coconut sambol: grated coconut mixed with chilli, dried fish and lime juice.
Photo: Lankan Foodie, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Blue whales can grow to about 30 metres long, longer than two city buses parked end to end, and the heart of one weighed about 180 kg, the heaviest heart ever measured in any animal. Mirissa is one of Sri Lanka's main spots for watching whales and dolphins.
Photo: NOAA Photo Library, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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