Our Heritage

Stories from Sri Lankan history, culture, crops and places, and the background to the products the island exports.

Featured Story

The Legacy of
Taprobane

Taprobane was the name ancient Greek geographers gave to the island now called Sri Lanka. Classical writers described its pearls, gems and elephants, and an embassy it sent to Rome.

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A wooden outrigger sailboat rests beside a weathered stone quay at dawn, with calm water, palms and soft mist.

Silver dance headdress, beaded chest harness, ankle bells and a double-headed drum on a wooden bench in warm side light.

Rhythms of the Hills

Kandyan Dance

Kandyan dance is the dance tradition of Sri Lanka's central hills. Legend traces its origin to the Kohomba Kankariya, a ritual of drumming, song and dance that is still performed.

A wooden handloom holds a half-woven black, red and cream geometric mat, with yarn and wooden shuttles beside it.

UNESCO Intangible Heritage

Dumbara Weaving

Dumbara Rata Kalala are hand-woven mats of hana fibre made in two Sri Lankan villages. UNESCO inscribed the craft on its Representative List of intangible heritage in 2021.

Clay bowls of dried roots, bark and leaves beside a stone mortar and tied palm-leaf manuscripts on a wooden table.

Indigenous Medicine

Hela Wedakama

Hela Wedakama, also called Deshiya Chikitsa, is Sri Lanka's indigenous medical tradition. The state groups it with Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani, and it is taught at university level.

Weathered brick ruins and carved granite pillars stand in short grass beneath large trees in late afternoon light.

Medieval Capital

Polonnaruwa Era

Polonnaruwa became Sri Lanka's second capital after Anuradhapura was destroyed in 993. Its 12th-century city, reservoir and Buddhist monuments are a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A lit brass oil lamp beside white frangipani and jasmine flowers on a polished stone floor in soft morning light.

The Dominion of Ceylon

Independence 1948

Ceylon became an independent dominion within the Commonwealth on 4 February 1948, when the constitution of 1947 came into effect.

Rough and cut blue sapphires rest on white cloth beside brass tweezers and a loupe in soft window daylight.

Ceylon Sapphires

Blue sapphire is Sri Lanka's national gemstone. Known abroad as Ceylon sapphire, it is mined mainly from river gravels, and Marco Polo wrote of the island's gems.

Painted wooden masks with bulging eyes and flared crests hang above a workshop bench with chisels and wood shavings.

Guardians of Tradition

Raksha Masks

Raksha masks are carved, painted wooden masks worn in kolam, the masked folk drama of Sri Lanka's south and west coasts. Ambalangoda in Galle District is a recorded centre of the craft.

Hands peel pale cinnamon bark with a brass rod beside a curved knife, while tan quills hang drying behind.

A Skill of Generations

The Art of Cinnamon Peeling

Sri Lankan peelers scrape, rub and lift the inner bark of the cinnamon tree by hand, then roll and fill it into quills. The skill has been handed down from generation to generation.

A clay-tiled courtyard pavilion with slender columns, a frangipani tree and a reflecting pool in late afternoon light.

Tropical Modernism

Geoffrey Bawa

Geoffrey Bawa (1919 to 2003) was a Sri Lankan architect. His houses, hotels and public buildings, including the Parliament at Kotte, were shaped by site and climate.

Empty wooden fishing stilts with crossbars stand in turquoise surf at sunrise beside a palm-lined beach.

Icon of the South

Stilt Fishing

Stilt fishing is rod-and-line fishing from a pole planted in the reef. It is practised mainly at Kathaluwa and Ahangama in Galle District, in south-western Sri Lanka.

Solar panels cover a low factory roof surrounded by tropical trees and a planted rain garden in morning sunlight.

Green Exports

What official bodies record about environmental practice in Sri Lankan export sectors, from the tea industry's ending of methyl bromide use to natural rubber and coir.

Rows of tall coconut palms behind a heap of husked coconuts and golden coir fibre drying on sunlit ground.

The Coconut Triangle

Kurunegala, Puttalam and Gampaha districts form Sri Lanka's Coconut Triangle. A university study puts about 55% of the country's coconut land there.

A wooden dhow with a triangular sail rests on a tropical bay at dusk, with sacks and cinnamon bundles on a stone jetty.

The Spice Route

Arab Traders & Serendib

Arab traders knew Sri Lanka as Serendib and carried its cinnamon and other goods west. For centuries buyers in Europe did not know where the spice came from.

A wooden tray of rice grain sits before stacked golden paddy sheaves on an earthen threshing floor beside ripe fields.

The Heartbeat of the Nation

Paddy Cultivation

Rice is the staple food of Sri Lanka. Paddy is grown in every district in two seasons, Maha and Yala, and farmers still cultivate traditional varieties such as Suwandel and Kalu Heenati.

A quiet cobbled lane between whitewashed buildings with terracotta roofs leads to stone ramparts overlooking the sea.

Dutch Fortifications

The Dutch captured Galle from the Portuguese in 1640 and enclosed it with stone ramparts and 14 bastions. The old town and its fortifications were inscribed by UNESCO in 1988.

Red, orange and indigo batik cloth hangs above a worn workshop table with a wax pot and copper tjanting tools.

Ceylon Batik

Batik is cloth decorated by wax-resist dyeing. The Export Development Board says the Dutch brought the craft to Sri Lanka from Indonesia. It grew into an industry from the 1970s.

Rows of rubber trees with spiral tapping cuts and cups collecting white latex above a sun-dappled, leaf-covered ground.

1876 - Henarathgoda

Introduction of Rubber

In 1876 rubber seedlings raised at Kew from seeds collected in Brazil were sent to Ceylon and planted at Henarathgoda garden in Gampaha, where the island's rubber industry began.

Tall brass oil lamps, engraved trays and bowls sit beside hammers and punches on a warmly lit metalworker’s bench.

Pilimathalawa Crafts

Brass & Bronze

Brassware is a hereditary craft of the Kandy area, centred on Pilimathalawa and the craft village of Kalapuraya. Makers produce trays, vases, oil lamps and spouted vessels called kendi.

A flat-topped granite rock rises above forest and ancient gardens with stone-edged ponds at sunrise.

5th Century Palace

Sigiriya: The Lion Rock

A 5th century royal capital built on and around a granite rock in Matale District by King Kassapa I. UNESCO inscribed the Ancient City of Sigiriya in 1982.

Kites fly above a grassy seafront promenade and long weathered sea wall as ocean waves break at sunset.

Galle Face Green

A seafront green in Colombo between Galle Road and the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka Tourism records that Governor Sir Henry Ward first planned it in 1859.

Red, yellow and black lacquered wooden boxes, a bowl and staffs rest on a worn craftsman's bench beside a hand lathe.

Vibrant Patterns

Laksha (Lacquer Work)

Laksha is Sri Lankan lacquer work: turned wooden objects coloured with lac, a resin secreted by a scale insect. The craft continues at Hapuwida in Matale District.

A weathered stone cabin with a tiled roof and veranda stands among tea bushes on a misty hillside.

Birth of Ceylon Tea

James Taylor & Loolecondera

In 1867 the Scottish planter James Taylor began a 19-acre tea plantation on Loolecondera Estate in the Kandy hills, the first commercial tea planting in Ceylon.

A rusted iron cannon on a weathered coral-stone rampart overlooks the Indian Ocean in soft morning light.

The Portuguese Arrival

In 1505 a Portuguese fleet under Lourenço de Almeida was driven by weather to Sri Lanka. By 1658 the Dutch had replaced the Portuguese on the island's coasts.

An old stone sluice crosses a reservoir embankment, with water lilies and waterbirds in soft morning light.

Mastery Over Water

Hydraulic Civilization

For some two thousand years, kings and villages in Sri Lanka's dry zone built reservoirs, canals and linked village tanks to store seasonal rain for rice fields.

Weathered granite steps strewn with white flowers lead through frangipani trees to a white hilltop stupa at sunrise.

3rd Century BCE

Arrival of Buddhism

Tradition holds that in the 3rd century BCE the monk Mahinda, sent from India in the time of Emperor Ashoka, met King Devanampiya Tissa at Mihintale and brought Buddhism to Sri Lanka.

Coffee bushes laden with red cherries on a steep, misty hillside beside an old stone drying terrace.

The Coffee Era

Coffee was Ceylon's main plantation crop from the 1820s. Coffee rust, first seen in 1869, wiped out the industry in little more than a decade, and tea took its place.

A stone railway viaduct curves through tea-covered hills and forest above a misty valley.

Engineering the Hills

Upcountry Railway

Sri Lanka's first train ran in 1864, on a line built to carry coffee to Colombo. The track later climbed through the tea country and was complete to Badulla by 1924.

A fishtail palm with a bound hanging flower cluster, suspended clay pot and bamboo ladder amid lush forest.

Kithul Tapping

Kithul tapping, or kithul madeema, is the traditional way of collecting sap from the kithul palm to make treacle and jaggery. UNESCO inscribed it on its Representative List in 2025.

From the Stories
to the Products

Our export catalogue lists the Sri Lankan products we supply to trade buyers. Browse by category, then ask our export team for a written quotation.

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