6 ATLASES

History of Sri Lanka in maps

Sri Lanka as it appears in 6 interactive history atlases, from 1750 to 1991: Ceylon. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

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Map of India in February 1948, showing Sri Lanka — MAP OF INDIA IN FEBRUARY 1948

These maps are reconstructed from published sources · Cliopatria v0.2.1: dated historical polity records · National Archives of India: Abhilekh Patal historical records portal · Natural Earth v5.1.2: complete country reference geometry · Natural Earth: administrative reference units · UK National Archives: the Partition of British India · Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908): Indian Empire political plate

Source details

Cliopatria contributors / Seshat Global History Databank. CC BY 4.0 · Reviewed record selection; East/West Pakistan selected as complete components; source dates and identities retained.
National Archives of India; contextual historical records, not a boundary survey. Historical factual reference; no source prose reproduced
Natural Earth. Public domain
Natural Earth. Public domain · Full components retained and dissolved into explicitly dated historical groups; no source-coordinate simplification.
UK National Archives; award and independence context, not modern boundary geometry. Historical factual reference; no source prose reproduced
J. G. Bartholomew / Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908; scan Fowler & Fowler. Public domain · Native-resolution colour-boundary extraction; printed graticule registration; printed label holes removed, territorial enclaves retained. 1908 geography is explicitly a nearby-date proxy in earlier chapters.

Partition and Kashmir lines use the closest downloadable successor boundary references. Later river and enclave changes, and the 1972 LoC adjustments, are not represented as exact 1947/1949 surveys.

proxy: 1947 award; modern same-border reference · proxy: Contemporary regional reference · proxy: Historical enclave, source-vintage outline · proxy: Modern same-enclave reference · proxy: Natural Earth v5.1.2 · proxy: Sikkim protectorate, contemporary same-unit outline · reconstruction: Event-specific regional reporting units; source-vintage geography · trace: 1908 printed plate; explicit earlier-date proxy when bound to earlier chapters · vector: 1890–2023 · vector: 1947–1975 · vector: 1948–1949 · vector: 1948–1952 · vector: 1948–1962 · vector: 1948–1968 · vector: 1948–1986

Layer records and reconstruction methods

What was Sri Lanka before it was Sri Lanka? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.

Ceylon (mod. Sri Lanka) · Mongol Empire

1206	Beyond the conquests — the opening position

MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ceylon (mod. Sri Lanka) · Industrial Revolution

c. 1750

Colony or dependency — the opening position

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Ceylon (mod. Sri Lanka) · Indian independence

Ceylon was only sixty miles offshore, yet it left empire by a different route from the mainland. It had universal suffrage from 1931, Asia’s first, and its leaders negotiated independence on 4 February 1948 without mass jail-going, a march, or a massacre. The contrast is revealing, though the calm carried a deferred cost. Within a year the new state disenfranchised its Indian Tamil plantation workers. The majoritarian temptation the mainland fought in 1947 reached Ceylon on a slower fuse.