Colombo (Sri Lanka)

Abstract

Description: Largest city and former administrative capital of \nSri Lanka; an important seaport where colonial \npowers once vied for control of the spice trade. Site Office: Ceylon Tourist Board \n78 Steuart Place \nP. O. Box 1504 \nColombo 3 \nSri Lanka \n(43) 7059 or (43) 7060 Colombo, with a population of approximately 1 million, is \nten times as large as any other city in Sri Lanka, but it did not \nbegin to grow to any considerable extent until the sixteenth \ncentury. It had been a small seaport for centuries prior to that. \nThe port first was mentioned by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim \nFa Xian, writing in the fifth century A.D., who called it \nKao-lan-pu. The Sinhalese, an Indo-Aryan people who had \nsettled in Sri Lanka in the sixth or fifth century B.C, referred \nto the town as Kolamba, which probably derives from a \nSinhalese word meaning "port" or "ferry." Whatever the site's \nname, its role as a seaport became its defining feature.

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