Is Colombo the Capital of Srilanka????

              Phani Siddha

@ Super Sixty IAS Academy

                   Hyd

Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka.

 Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo. Colombo has a population of 647,100.

 The Colombo Metropolitan Region, covers an area of 3,694.20 km².

As per the Provincial Gross Domestic Product-2010, The Western Province, which includes the cities of Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara recorded GDP per capita of USD 3,808, the highest recorded GDP per capita for any region in South Asia.

It was formerly the political capital of Sri Lanka, before Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte.

Due to its large harbour and its strategic position along the East-West sea trade routes, Colombo was known to ancient traders 2,000 years ago. It was made the capital of the island when Sri Lanka was ceded to the British Empire in 1815 and its status as capital was retained when the nation became independent in 1948.

 In 1978, when administrative functions were moved to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, Colombo was designated as the commercial capital of Sri Lanka.

Like many cities, Colombo's urban area extends well beyond the boundaries of a single local authority, encompassing other Municipal and Urban Councils.

Famous landmarks in Colombo include the Galle Face Green, the Viharamahadevi Park, Mount Lavinia beach as well as the National Museum

Colombo was the capital of the coastal areas controlled by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British from the 1700s to the 1815 when the British gained control of the entire island following the Kandian convention.


 From then until the 1980s the national capital of the island was Colombo.


 During the 1980s plans were made to move the administrative capital to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte and thus move all governmental institutions out of Colombo to make way for commercial activities. As a primary step the Parliament was moved to a new complex in Kotte and several ministries and departments were also moved. However the move was never completed.


 Today many governmental institutions still remain in Colombo. These include the President's House, Presidential Secretariat, Prime Minister's House (Temple Trees), Prime Minister's Office, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, important government ministries and departments; such as Finance (Treasury), Defence, Public Administration & Home affairs, Foreign affairs, Justice and the Military headquarters, Naval headquarters (SLNS Parakrama), Air Force headquarters (SLAF Colombo) and Police national and field force headquarters