Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Colombo
- Region
- Asia, Southern Asia
- Population
- 21,756,000 (2025)
- Area
- 65,610 km²
- Currency
- Sri Lankan rupee (LKR)
- Languages
- Sinhala, Tamil, English
- Calling code
- +94
- Internet domain
- .lk, .இலங்கை, .ලංකා
- ISO codes
- LK, LKA, 144
- Time zone
- UTC+5:30
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ##### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Sri Lanka covers about 65,610 square kilometres. By area it ranks 124th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Georgia and a little larger than Lithuania. It shares a land border with 1 neighbour: India. Its centre lies at about 7° north, 81° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 21.8 million people live in Sri Lanka (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 63rd most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.26 percent of the world's people. On average there are 332 people to each square kilometre. About 20 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 78 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Sinhala, Tamil, English. A person from Sri Lanka is called Sri Lankan.
Money and economy
The currency is the Sri Lankan rupee (code LKR, symbol Rs රු). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 109 billion (2025), which is about US$ 5,002 for each person (2025).
Time
Sri Lanka uses one time zone, UTC+5:30 (Asia/Colombo). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Colombo | 648,034 |
| Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia | 219,827 |
| Maharagama | 195,355 |
| Jaffna | 169,102 |
| Moratuwa | 168,280 |
| Negombo | 137,223 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Southern Asia
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.