The island of Sri Lanka is 65,610 km², and is densely populated with 21.8 million people . The location, lying 50 km south of India, gave the island a strategic importance as trade shipping routes opened up around the world. This afforded attention from a number of European powers. Sri Lanka was colonised by the Portuguese in the 16th century, replaced by Dutch powers in the 17th and 18th centuries, and then the British up to independence in 1948. There is a pluralistic legal system, where a residual Roman-Dutch Law operates next to a British-style parliament and a French-style presidency but with few safeguards against abuse of power. Economically, Sri Lanka carries a lower-middle-income status under World Bank measures. However, this clouds a high level of income inequality, where 40% of the population live on less than 225 Sri Lankan rupees (1.2 USD) per day, and 70% of labour lies in the informal sector, without access to social welfare.
Socio-economic indicators
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Land Area
6,186,000 ha
GDP/Capita
13,386.7 USD
Total population
22,156,000
Urban population
18.5 %
Land-related indicators
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NewsBrowse all
30 December 2022
ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s agriculture authorities are planning to grab 14,000 acres of paddy, violating property rights of the owners claiming that there are ‘fallow’ and give them ‘young persons’ to cultivate them, a report said, recalling Zimbabwe style land reform.
The plan to take-over 14,000…
13 December 2022
Attempts to re-expropriate assets of Sri Lanka’s privatized commercial plantations on the pretext of being under-utilized will undermine property rights and discourage investors, officials and analysts said.
Sri Lanka’s privatized plantations which are on 50-year lease have only 70,000 hectares of…
13 November 2022
Main photo: Proposed site for the sugar factory
A decades-long struggle that farmers have been waging against multinationals angling to acquire thousands of acres of lush state agricultural land in Bibile for a sugar factory is continuing.
Farmer A.M. Gunabanda says a proposed sugarcane project…
Sri Lanka is one of the countries most at risk of climate change, and there are fears that the extensive conversion of land, for example in wetlands, may increase vulnerability to landslides and flooding
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14 October 2021
Over the last month the news all over the world broke with stories about the departure of US forces from Afghanistan and its takeover by the Taliban. Many wonder what the future will bring to those who remained and to those who fled the country. This thought immediately raises all sorts of…