Sri Lanka - Ceylon

The Socialist Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka is thankfully not socialist anymore. But the name remains. It was officialy changed from Ceylon in 1972. The late president Premadasa renamed it as Shri Lanka but hardly anyone took any notice. Sri Lanka is known as Lanka and Ilankai in the local languages of Sinhala and Tamil. Other traditional Sinhala names of the country include Lakbima, Lankadeepa, Siri Laka, and Lakdiva which sometimes is confused with the Indian islands of Lakdiv. At other times Ceylon has been known as Serendib (Serendip), Zeylan (Ceylan) and Seylan. Serendipitous : the faculty to make happy and unexpected discoveries by accident. Coined by Horace Walpole (1754) after The princes of Serendip (Sri Lanka), a Fairy Tale The Oxford Dictionary.

The Sri Lanka Home Page