Sri Lanka formerly known as Ceylon is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre.
During a period of great political crisis in the Sinhalese kingdom of Kotte, the Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka. After the Sinhalese-Portuguese war, the Dutch and the Kingdom of Kandy took control of those areas. The Dutch possessions were then taken by the British, who later extended their control over the whole island, colonising it from 1815 to 1948. In 1948, Ceylon became a dominion. The dominion was succeeded by the republic named Sri Lanka.