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Sri Lanka

Updated: Sep 15, 2022

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Country Name

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon.

Location

Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean southwest of the Bay of Bengal and southeast of the Arabian Sea. It is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and the Maldives.


Capital

Colombo

Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte.




Reason for Naming

Sri Lanka was known to travelers by a variety of names. Ancient Greek geographers called it Taprobanā, The Persians and Arabs referred to it as Sarandīb (the origin of the word "serendipity") from Sanskrit Siṃhaladvīpa the name given to Sri Lanka by the Portuguese was Ceilão, A name that the British later converted to Ceylon.

The name of the state is pronounced in the Sinhalese language as Sri Lanka and the name of the island is pronounced as Lamkava. As for the Tamil language, both are pronounced Ilankay. The two words are derived from the Sanskrit language and were used in the ancient Indian epics to describe the island, which roughly means the beautiful and radiant island.



Flag

The first use of the current flag design was in 1948. The flag was officially adopted on 22 May 1972.

The flag consists of a Golden <