AREA: 65,610 sq km (25,332 sq miles).

POPULATION: 18,552,000 (1997).

POPULATION DENSITY: 278.9 per sq km.

CAPITAL: Colombo. Population: 2,026,000 (1993).

GEOGRAPHY: Sri Lanka is an island off the southeast coast of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is separated from India by the Indian Ocean, in which lie the chain of islands called Adam's Bridge. Sri Lanka has an irregular surface with low-lying coastal plains running inland from the northern and eastern shores. The central and southern areas slope into hills and mountains. The highest peak is Pidurutalagala (2524m/8281ft).

LANGUAGE: Sinhala, Tamil and English.

GOVERNMENT: Socialist Republic since 1978. Gained independence from the UK in 1948. Head of State: President Chandrika Kumaratunga since 1994. Head of Government: Prime Minister Sirimavo R D Bandaranaike since 1994.

RELIGION: Buddhist, with Hindu, Christian and Muslim minorities.

TIME: GMT + 6.

ELECTRICITY: 230/240 volts AC, 50Hz. Round 3-pin plugs are usual, with bayonet lamp fittings.

COMMUNICATIONS: Telephone: IDD facilities are available to the principal cities. Country code: 94. Outgoing international code: 00. Phone cards are available at post offices and shops. Fax: The General Post Office in Colombo (address below) provides a service. Many hotels also have facilities. Telegram: These can be sent from all post offices. Post: Airmail to Europe takes up to a week. Press: Daily newspapers published in English include the Daily News, The Island and The Observer.

BBC World Service and Voice of America frequencies: From time to time these change.

BBC:

MHz

17.79

15.31

11.10

5.975

A service is also available on 1413kHz.

Voice of America:

	Passport Required?	Visa Required?	Return Ticket Required?
Full British	Yes	1	Yes
Australian	Yes	2	Yes
Canadian	Yes	3	Yes
USA	Yes	2	Yes
Other EU	Yes	1	Yes
Japanese	Yes	3	Yes

PASSPORTS: Passport valid for at least 3 months beyond the length of stay required by all.

VISAS: Required by all except nationals of the following countries who will be issued with visas free of charge on arrival at Colombo airport (for touristic visits only):

(a) 1. nationals of EU countries for a maximum stay of 30 days (nationals of Finland and Sweden may stay for up to 90 days);

(b) 2. nationals of Australia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines and the USA for a maximum stay of 90 days;

(c) 3. nationals of Albania, Bahrain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea (Rep. of), Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Maldives, Norway, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey and United Arab Emirates for a maximum stay of 30 days;

(d) nationals of CIS countries (except Georgia and Kyrgyzstan) for a maximum stay of 30 days.

Note: All business visitors require a visa.

Types of visa and cost: Tourist: £28. Multiple-entry Business: £84 (up to 3 months); £144 (up to 12 months). Transit: £28. Prices given are for UK nationals. Prices vary according to nationality; contact the Consulate (or Consular section at Embassy or High Commission) for further details.

Validity: As above. Visitors can request to extend their stay by applying to the Department of Immigration & Emigration, Station Road, Colombo 04 (tel: (1) 503 629 or 503 631 or 503 638; fax: (1) 597 511). This is issued at the discretion of the authorities who must be satisfied that the applicant has at least US$25 per day for the stay and holds an onward or return ticket for travel.

Application to: Consulate (or Consular section at Embassy or High Commission); see address section.

Application requirements: (a) Valid passport. (b) Completed application form. (c) 1 passport-size photo signed on the back by applicant. (d) Fee with self-addressed envelope, stamped for £4, for return of passport. (e) Proof of sufficient funds for duration of stay.

Business: (a)-(e) and, (f) A letter from sponsor in the applicant's own country accepting financial responsibility for the applicant and guaranteeing his/her return to home country. The company must ensure that the applicant does not undertake any activities which are illegal in Sri Lanka or which conflict with the cultural, moral and religious values of that country.

Working days required: 4.

The following items may be imported into Sri Lanka by visitors aged 18 years and over without incurring customs duty:

200 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 340g of tobacco; 2 bottles of wine and 1.5 litres of spirits; a small quantity of perfume and 250ml of eau de toilette.

Jan 1 2000 New Year's Day. Jan 9 Eid al-Fitr (End of Ramadan). Jan 15 Tamil Thai Pongal Day. Feb 4 Independence Commemoration Day. Mar 18 Eid al-Adha (Hadji Festival Day – holiday for Muslims only). Apr 13-14 Tamil and Sinhala New Year. Apr 21 Good Friday. Apr 24 Easter Monday. May 1 May Day. Jun 17 Milad un-Nabi (Birth of the Prophet). Oct 26 Deepavali Festival. Dec 25 Christmas Day. Dec 30 Eid al-Fitr (End of Ramadan). Jan 1 2001 New Year's Day. Jan 15 Tamil Thai Pongal Day. Feb 4 Independence Commemoration Day. Mar 8 Eid al-Adha (Hadji Festival Day – holiday for Muslims only). Apr 13 Good Friday. Apr 16 Easter Monday. Apr 13-14 Tamil and Sinhala New Year. May 1 May Day. Jun 7 Milad un-Nabi (Birth of the Prophet). Oct 16 Deepavali Festival. Dec 20 Eid al-Fitr (End of Ramadan). Dec 25 Christmas Day.

	Special Precautions	Certificate Required
Yellow Fever	No	1
Cholera	Yes	2
Typhoid & Polio	Yes	-
Malaria	3	-
Food & Drink	4	-

1: A yellow fever vaccination certificate is required from travellers over one year of age arriving from infected areas.

2: Following WHO guidelines issued in 1973, a cholera vaccination certificate is not a condition of entry to Sri Lanka. However, cholera is a serious risk in this country and precautions are essential. Up-to-date advice should be sought before deciding whether these precautions should include vaccination as medical opinion is divided over its effectiveness. See the Health appendix.

3: Malaria risk, predominantly in the benign vivax form, exists throughout the year in the districts of Amparai, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Badulla, Hambantota, Jaffna, Kandy, Kegalle, Kurunegala, Mannar, Matale, Matara, Moneragala, Polonnaruwa, Puttalam, Ratnapura, Trincomalee and Vavuniya. The malignant falciparum strain is also present and is reported to be highly resistant to chloroquine.

4: All water should be regarded as being potentially contaminated. Water used for drinking, brushing teeth or making ice should have first been boiled or otherwise sterilised. Bottled water and a variety of mineral waters are available at most hotels. Unpasteurised milk should be boiled. Powdered or tinned milk is available and is advised, but make sure that it is reconstituted with pure water. Pasteurised and sterilised milk is available in some hotels and shops. Avoid dairy products made with unboiled milk. Only eat well-cooked meat and fish, preferably served hot. Pork, salad and mayonnaise may carry increased risk. Vegetables should be cooked and fruit peeled.

Rabies is present. For those at high risk, vaccination before arrival should be considered. If you are bitten, seek medical advice without delay. For more information, consult the Health appendix.

Hepatitis A, B and E are present and precautions should be taken.

Dengue fever occurs.

AIR: The major domestic airport is Ratmalana at Colombo. There are daily flights to smaller airports at Batticaloa, Gal Oya, Palali and Trincomalee. The airport at Jaffna is currently closed.

Departure tax: SLR50.

Helicopter tours: Helitours of Ceylon, with pilots from the Sri Lanka Air Force, offers charter tours of major tourist areas.

RAIL: Trains connect Colombo with all tourist towns, but first-class carriages, air-conditioning and dining cars are available on only a few. New fast services operate on the principal routes, otherwise journeys are fairly leisurely. The total network covers 1500km (900 miles).

Note: Rail services to Jaffna have recently been much reduced owing to the violent political disruptions in the northern area.

ROAD: Traffic drives on the left. Most roads are tarred, with a 56kph (35mph) speed limit in built-up areas and 75kph (45mph) outside towns. Bus: An extensive network of services of reasonable quality is provided by the Sri Lanka Central Transport Board. Taxi: These are available in most towns. Car hire: This is available from several international agencies. Air-conditioned minibuses are also available. Chaffeur-driven cars are less expensive and recommended. Avoid remote areas and travelling at night. Documentation: In order to avoid bureaucratic formalities in Sri Lanka, an International Driving Permit should be obtained before departure. If not, a temporary licence to drive is obtainable on presentation of a valid national driving licence. This must be endorsed at the AA office in Colombo. The minimum age for driving a car is 18.

URBAN: Bus: The Central Transport Board provides intensive urban bus operations in Colombo, where there are also private buses and minibuses. Fares are generally collected by conductors. Services are often crowded. Taxi: These are metered with yellow tops and red and white plates. Drivers expect a 10% tip.

JOURNEY TIMES: The following chart gives approximate journey times (in hours and minutes) from Colombo to other major cities/towns in Sri Lanka.

FOOD & DRINK: Standard foods are spicy and it is advised to approach curries with caution. There are many vegetables, fruits, meats and seafoods. Continental, Chinese, Indian and Japanese menus are available in Colombo. A speciality is basic curry, made with coconut milk, sliced onion, green chilli, aromatic spices such as cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and saffron and aromatic leaves. Hoppers is a cross between a muffin and a crumpet with a wafer-crisp edge, served with a fresh egg soft-baked on top. Stringhoppers are steamed circlets of rice flour, a little more delicate than noodles or spaghetti. Jaggery is a fudge made from the crystallised sap of the kitul palm. The durian fruit is considered a great delicacy. Drink: Tea is the national drink and thought to be amongst the best in the world. Toddy, the sap of the palm tree, is a popular local drink; fermented, it becomes arrack which, it should be noted, comes in varying degrees of strength. Alcohol cannot be sold on poya holidays (which occur each lunar month on the day of the full moon).

NIGHTLIFE: Some Colombo hotels have supper clubs with music for dancing. There are theatres in Colombo, cinemas showing films from the USA, ballet, concerts and theatre productions.

SHOPPING: Special purchases include handicrafts and curios of silver, brass, bone, ceramics, wood and terracotta. Also cane baskets, straw hats, reed mats and tea. Some of the masks, which are used in dance-dramas, in processions and on festival days, can be bought by tourists. The '18-disease' mask shows a demon in possession of a victim; he is surrounded by 18 faces – each of which cures a specific ailment. Versions produced for the tourist market are often of a high standard. Sri Lanka is also rich in gems. Fabrics include batiks, cottons, rayons, silks and fine lace. Shopping hours: 0900-1730 Monday to Friday and 0900-1300 Saturday.

SPECIAL EVENTS: For further information and exact dates, contact the Tourist Board (see address section). The following list is a selection of events taking place in Sri Lanka annually:

Jan Duruthu Perahera Festival (commemorating a visit of the Buddha to Sri Lanka), Kelaniya; Thai Pongal (traditional Hindu festival where thanksgiving prayers are offered to the deities, and milk rice is boiled at dawn in the direction of the rising sun). Feb Navam Perahera Festival (colourful street procession with nearly 100 elephants and 'low country' dancers), Colombo. Feb 4 Independence Commemoration Day. Apr 13-14 Sinhala and Hindu New Year. May 29 Wesak Festival (commemorates the Birth, Enlightenment and Death of Buddha). Jul/Aug Kataragama Festival, Tissamaharama; Esala Perahera Festival, Kandy. Sep 26 Bandaranaike Commemoration Day. Nov 7 Deepavali Festival. Dec Sanghamitta Day.

ECONOMY: Until the onset of civil war in the early 1980s, Sri Lanka's economic prospects were fairly good. However, large parts of the economy have suffered severe dislocation – in particular, the tourist industry which was once the most promising sector of all but has declined steadily in recent years. The effects have been most apparent in the high level of unemployment and the large budget deficit. Agriculture sustains most of the working population. The main cash crops are tea, rubber and coconuts, which provide over 75% of export earnings. Rice is grown mainly for domestic consumption. Forestry and fishing are also important. The main industrial sectors are mining and manufacturing. In the former case, gemstones and graphite are the principal minerals. Iron ore, limestone, clay and uranium ore are also present in commercially exploitable quantities. Hydroelectricity is the main source of power, supplemented by imported oil. Several important manufacturing industries are under government control – including cement and textiles, both of which are valuable export earners and typical of the Government's strategy of trying to promote export-oriented industries. During the 1990s, successive governments have pursued market-oriented policies, with privatisation and deregulation, but development has been hampered by a shortage of domestic capital and the reluctance of foreign capital to invest in the island (again, a consequence of the civil war). Climatic effects, particularly recurrent drought, have exacerbated the situation. However, since 1997, the economy has grown steadily and may now begin to fulfil its potential: much depends, however, on the political and security situation. Japan, the USA, and the UK are Sri Lanka's major trading partners.

BUSINESS: Business attire is casual. English is widely spoken in business circles. Appointments are necessary and it is considered polite to arrive punctually. It is usual to exchange visiting cards on first introduction. Office hours: 0800-1630 Monday to Friday.

COMMERCIAL INFORMATION: The following organisation can offer advice: Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka, 29 Gregory's Road, Colombo 7 (tel: (1) 698 225; fax: (1) 699 530); or Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, 50 Navam Mawatha, Colombo 2 (tel: (1) 421 745; fax: (1) 449 352; e-mail: infodiv@sri.lanka.net; web site: http://www.lanka.net/chamber).

Tropical climate. Upland areas are cooler and more temperate and coastal areas are cooled by sea breezes. There are two monsoons, which occur May to July and December to January.

HISTORY: Sri Lanka was part of the Empire of Asoka during the 3rd century, during which time the population was converted to Buddhism. The Sinhalese inhabitants later moved their capital to Polonnaruva in the south of the island to escape from repeated Tamil invasions during the 11th and 12th centuries. The first Europeans to arrive were the Portuguese, quickly supplanted by the Dutch in the 17th century. In 1796 Sri Lanka (as Ceylon) was acquired from the Dutch by the British. Initially, administration of the island was shared between the East India Company and the Crown, but the latter assumed full control in 1802. Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) eventually won independence in 1948. Past colonisation by the Indians, Portuguese, Dutch and British have all left their mark in architecture, customs, language and agriculture. The country became a republic in 1972, adopting a new constitution along with the Sinhala name, Sri Lanka. The majority (70%) of the population are Buddhists of Sinhalese descent, but the north and parts of the east of Sri Lanka are dominated by the Tamil population (15%), Hindu by religion, and associated with the Tamils of southern India. Serious conflict arose from the Tamil minority's demands for a separate Tamil state, and terrorist activity by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Eelam being the title of their notional independent state) since the 1970s, has provoked increasingly vigorous responses from the Government. The Indian government became increasingly involved in the conflict, initially as official mediator between the Tamils and the Sri Lankan Government but then, after the failure of an armistice in 1987, it intervened militarily on the government side. A large Indian force engaged the Tamils and, by the end of that year, took the crucial Jaffna peninsula, with heavy losses on both sides. However, all the key Tamil leaders and many of the guerrillas escaped into the jungle. With more than 1000 Indian soldiers dead, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi struggled to persuade the Sri Lankan government to guarantee certain rights for the Tamil minority, but the Government was constrained by militant Sinhalese. In 1988 Sri Lankan President Premadasa, the candidate of the United National Party (UNP) which had been in office for a decade already, won the presidential election with a small overall majority. Bogged down in an unpopular war of attrition, the Indian troops withdrew in 1989 and the Tigers reoccupied Jaffna. The assassination of Indian premier Rajiv Ghandi in 1991 was one aspect of the Tigers' revenge for the Indian military campaign. With military and political stalemate through 1991 and 1992, the war of attrition continued without decisive military developments or peace manoeuvres. In the summer of 1993, the Sri Lankan army – retrained and re-equipped with foreign support – launched another major offensive on the Jaffna peninsula but was stalled by fierce Tiger resistance. The army's initiative had come after a further change of presidency, following the assassination of President Premadasa (possibly by the Tigers) in May 1993. The incumbent Prime Minister, Dingiri Wijetunga, replaced him for the rest of the presidential term which expired in December 1994. The election which followed swept the opposition candidate Chandrikha Kumaratunga into office, ending the UNP's 17-year stranglehold on the presidency. During 1995, Kumaratunga succeeded, for the first time, in wresting both the military and diplomatic initiative from the Tigers. After a round of negotiations based on the possibility of adopting a new federal structure for the island, the Tigers rejected the Government's proposals and another major offensive was launched by the army in October 1995. It was spectacularly successful and drove the main Tiger forces, along with much of the civilian population, into the jungle and forest areas surrounding the lagoon. Although the Kumaratunga Government now had the upper hand, the Tigers were far from finished: over the next eighteen months they scored a number of victories which reversed some but not all of their earlier losses. In January 1998, the Government took the step of formally outlawing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which effectively ruled out anything but a military solution. The army's most recent campaign against the Tigers in September 1998 saw some of the fiercest fighting yet in the 15-year civil war. Since then fighting has continued largely inconclusively, punctuated by occasional suicide bomb attacks against high profile targets. Several of these occurred during the 1999 presidential elections. The poll, which took place in December, returned the incumbent President Karamatunga for a second term.