MAPS OF HISTORY · HISTORY OF · Sri Lanka

ONE LAND · 5 ATLASES

Sri Lanka, on the map of history

What was Sri Lanka before it was Sri Lanka? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History collection — 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) · The Mongol Empire, 1206–1294

OPEN THE MONGOL EMPIRE ON THE LIVING MAP →

Ceylon (mod. Sri Lanka) · Indian Independence & Partition, 1905–1948

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.

OPEN INDIAN INDEPENDENCE & PARTITION ON THE LIVING MAP →

Ceylon · The Great War, 1914–1918

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Ceylon (British) · The Road to War, 1931–1941

OPEN THE ROAD TO WAR ON THE LIVING MAP →

Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · The Cold War, 1945–1991

OPEN THE COLD WAR ON THE LIVING MAP →