Provinces of Sri Lanka

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Updates: 

Sri Lanka has announced that it will set its clocks back half an hour at 0:30 on April 15, from UTC+6 to UTC+5:30. Sri Lanka's standard time was UTC+5:30 from the adoption of standard time in 1906 until 1996. In 1996, it was moved ahead one hour, and then back a half hour. The LTTE ("Tamil Tigers") ignored the changes, and in areas under their control, UTC+5:30 continued to be observed. Therefore, the new move will bring the entire country back in synch.

The results of the 2001 census have been posted in this table  on the Web site of the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS), Sri Lanka. The DCS has also assigned hierarchical subdivision codes. The first digit of the census code is the same as the ISO code for the province containing the district. These codes match the ISO code for the district, except for four districts in Northern province; even in those districts, the first digit of the ISO code matches the ISO code for the province. The census codes apply to the 2001 census only; different codes may be used in other years.

Because of civil strife, the census enumeration was incomplete or absent in seven districts. The populations for those districts were left blank in this table.

Country overview: 

Ceylon was a British colony at the beginning of the 20th century. It became an independent member of the Commonwealth on 1948-02-04. On 1972-05-22, it became a republic and changed its English name to Sri Lanka.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Sri Lanka, Ceylon (obsolete)
2. Dutch: Srilanka, Sri Lanka, Democratische Socialistische Republiek Sri Lanka (formal)
3. English: Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (formal), Ceylon (obsolete)
4. Finnish: Sri Lanka
5. French: Sri Lanka m
6. German: Sri Lanka n
7. Icelandic: Srí Lanka
8. Italian: Sri Lanka m
9. Norwegian: Den demokratiske sosialistiske republikk Sri Lanka (formal) (Bokmål), Den demokratiske sosialistiske republikken Sri Lanka (formal) (Nynorsk), Sri Lanka
10. Portuguese: Seri Lanca, Sri Lanka, República f Democrática Socialista do Sri Lanka m (formal), Ceilão m (obsolete)
11. Sinhala: Sri Lanka Prajathanthrika Samajavadi Janarajaya (formal)
12. Spanish: Sri Lanka, República f Socialista Democrática de Sri Lanka m (formal)
13. Swedish: Sri Lanka

Origin of name: 

Sri is an honorific title; Lanka is the name of a mythical island country mentioned in the Ramayana

Primary subdivisions: 

Sri Lanka is divided into 25 distrikkaya (districts).

Further subdivisions:

See the Divisions of Sri Lanka page.

Subordinate to the districts, there are the pradeshiya mandalaya (divisional council) and gramodaya mandalaya (village council). Since the late 19th century, both palata (provinces) and districts have coexisted, with each province being a group of districts. The provinces had no administrative function until 1988. The Northern and Eastern provinces have been temporarily merged into a North Eastern province, intended to placate Tamil demands for greater self-rule. The merger will become permanent after a referendum which has been repeatedly postponed. Some lists now show eight provinces, and some nine.

International standard ISO 3166-2 was published on December 15, 1998. It superseded ISO/DIS 3166-2 (draft international standard). For Sri Lanka, the draft standard showed both provinces and districts. Each province or district had a two-digit code. Three codes were duplicated: a province had the same code as a district. In the final standard, the two-digit province codes were replaced with one-digit codes. Obviously, this did away with any duplications.

The standard is now set up so that you can tell which province each district is in by their codes. The first digit of a district code is the same as the code for the province in which it belongs.

The government of Sri Lanka provisionally merged Northern and Eastern provinces into a North Eastern province, in an attempt to placate Tamil demands for self-rule. A referendum has been planned to ratify this merger, but it keeps getting postponed. The draft standard showed only North Eastern province. The final standard shows Northern and Eastern as separate provinces.

The provinces and their codes are shown in this table.

Territorial extent: 

All districts are situated mostly on the island of Sri Lanka.

1. Jaffna is located on the Jaffna peninsula, which is nearly separated from the rest of Sri Lanka. It also contains some islands in Palk Strait, such as Delft, Velanai, Karaitivu, and Punkudutivu.
2. Mannar includes Mannar Island, part of the chain of islands and peninsulas called Adam's Bridge.

Origins of names: 

Colombo: possibly Sinhala kolamba: port, ferry; assimilated to Columbus's name by Portuguese colonists

Change history: 

1. ~1958: Chilaw district merged with Puttalam district, both in North-Western province; Amparai district split from Batticaloa; Moneragala district split from Badulla; Polonnaruwa district split from Anuradhapura.
2. 1974-06-28: Kachchativu island transferred from India to Sri Lanka.
3. 1978-08-31: New constitution adopted. Gampaha district split from Colombo. Mullaitivu district formed from parts of Jaffna, Mannar, and Vavuniya.
4. 1982: Some governmental functions moved from Colombo to Sri Jayawardenapura (formerly Kotte).
5. 1983-10-04: Jaffna district split into Jaffna and Kilinochchi by the seventh amendment to the constitution.
6. 1987-11-14: Thirteenth amendment to the constitution passed, authorizing the establishment of provincial councils to govern the nine provinces.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. districts:
2. Ampara: Amparai (variant)
3. Kandy: Maha Nuwara (variant)
4. Kegalle: Kegalla (variant)
5. Moneragala: Monaragala (variant)
6. Mullaitivu: Mulativu, Mullaittivu (variant)
7. Nuwara Eliya: Nuvara Eliya (variant)
8. provinces:
9. Central: Madhyama (Sinhala)
10. North Central: Uturumeda (Sinhala)
11. North Western: Wayamba (Sinhala)
12. Southern: Dakunu (Sinhala)
13. Western: Basnahira (Sinhala)

Population history:

All figures are from censuses except 1996.