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Map of Sri-Lanka

Sri Lanka

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 browse all
Land Area
6,186,000 ha
GDP/Capita
13,386.7 USD

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Sri Lanka cash-strapped state plans 14,000-acre land grab in currency crisis: report

30 December 2022

Sri Lanka’s agriculture authorities are planning to grab 14,000 acres of paddy

Re-expropriation of Sri Lanka plantation land to violate property rights, scare investors

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.

Bibile corn farmers rail against foreign firm’s land grab for sugar factory

13 November 2022

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.

Sri Lanka

projects

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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Restoring Land Rights in the Aftermath of War: Country Insights Digest #3 - October 2021

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…