ONE LAND · 6 ATLASES
History of Sri Lanka in maps
Sri Lanka as it appears in 6 interactive history atlases, from 1750 to 1991: Ceylon. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.
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What was Sri Lanka before it was Sri Lanka? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History atlases — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.
Ceylon (mod. Sri Lanka) · Mongol Empire
| Beyond the storm — the opening position |
MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Ceylon (mod. Sri Lanka) · Industrial Revolution
| Colony or dependency — the opening position |
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Ceylon (mod. Sri Lanka) · Indian independence
Ceylon watched the mainland’s storms from sixty miles offshore and chose another road: universal suffrage from 1931 (Asia’s first), elite negotiation instead of mass jail-going, and independence on 4 February 1948 without a march or a massacre — the era’s control experiment. The calm had a deferred bill: within a year the new state disenfranchised its Indian Tamil plantation workers, and the majoritarian temptation the mainland fought in 1947 arrived here on a slower fuse.
| Crown colonies · Burma after 1937 — the opening position | |
| Self-rule / independent |
INDIAN INDEPENDENCE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Ceylon · WWI
| Entente-aligned & imperial territories — the opening position |
Ceylon (British) · Road to WW2
| Colonial empires & possessions — the opening position |
ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Cold War
| NATO & core Western allies — the opening position | |
| Non-aligned & neutral |
COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
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