{"id":106409,"date":"2020-09-08T15:29:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T22:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=106409"},"modified":"2020-09-08T15:29:30","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T22:29:30","slug":"the-demarcation-of-provinces-in-ceylon-under-british-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/08\/the-demarcation-of-provinces-in-ceylon-under-british-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"The Demarcation of Provinces in Ceylon under British Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">Michael Roberts Courtesy <a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" title=\"Thuppahi's Blog\" href=\"https:\/\/thuppahis.com\/\" rel=\"home\">Thuppahi&#8217;s Blog<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>After the British imperial power consolidated its conquest of the island of Ceylon in 1815 and 1817\/18, they began to \u2018stitch the island together by commencing a road building programme; while the Colebrooke Cameron Commission which visited the island recommended the creation of five Provinces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/2-road-rail-network.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/2-road-rail-network.jpg?w=366&amp;h=539\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45361\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As the Wikipedia account notes,<a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahis.com\/2020\/09\/05\/the-demarcation-of-provinces-in-ceyon-under-british-rule\/#_edn1\">[i]<\/a>&nbsp;accordingly, on 1 October 1833 five provinces under one administration came into being\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Central_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">Central Province<\/a>\u2013 composed of the central Kandyan provinces.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eastern_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">Eastern Province<\/a>\u2013 composed of the maritime districts of Batticaloa and Trincomalee, and the Kandyan provinces of&nbsp;<strong>Bintenna&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>and Tamankaduwa.<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Northern_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">Northern Province<\/a>\u2013 composed of the maritime districts of Jaffna, Mannar and Vanni, and the Kandyan province of Nuwara Kalawiya.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Southern_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">Southern Province<\/a>\u2013 composed of the maritime districts of Galle, Hambantota, Matara and Tangalle, and the Kandyan provinces of Lower Uva, Saffragam and Wellassa.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Western_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">Western Province<\/a>\u2013 composed of the maritime districts of Colombo, Chilaw and Puttalam, and the Kandyan provinces of Three Korales, Four Korales, Seven Korales and Lower Bulathgama.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>However, over the next fifty years four additional provinces were created, taking the total number to nine:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_Western_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">North Western Province<\/a>was created in<strong>&nbsp;1845<\/strong>&nbsp;from northern Western Province (districts of Chilaw, Puttalam and Seven Korales)<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_Central_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">North Central Province<\/a>was created in<strong>&nbsp;1873<\/strong>&nbsp;from southern Northern Province (district of Nuwara Kalawiya) and north-western Eastern Province (district of&nbsp;<strong>Tamankaduwa<\/strong>).<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Uva_Province\">Uva Province<\/a>was created in&nbsp;<strong>1886&nbsp;<\/strong>from parts of Central Province, Eastern Province (district of&nbsp;<strong>Bintenna<\/strong>) and Southern Province (district of Wellassa).<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sabaragamuwa_Province\">Sabaragamuwa Province<\/a>was created in&nbsp;<strong>1889<\/strong>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/1833-45.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/1833-45.png?w=500\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45351\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1833-45<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/345px-provinces_of_british_ceylon_1845-73.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/345px-provinces_of_british_ceylon_1845-73.png?w=500\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45353\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1845-73<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/800px-provinces_of_british_ceylon_1873-86.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/800px-provinces_of_british_ceylon_1873-86.png?w=337&amp;h=439\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45355\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<strong>1873-86<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/345px-provinces_of_british_ceylon_1886-89.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/345px-provinces_of_british_ceylon_1886-89.png?w=500\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45357\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1886-1889<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/318px-map_of_sri_lanka_provinces-1889-present.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.files.wordpress.com\/2020\/09\/318px-map_of_sri_lanka_provinces-1889-present.png?w=500\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45359\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;1889-Present<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>ADDENDUM from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Provinces_of_Sri_Lanka\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Provinces_of_Sri_Lanka<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of provinces remained static&nbsp;<strong>until September 1988<\/strong>&nbsp;when,&nbsp;<strong>in accordance with the&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Indo-Sri_Lanka_Accord\">Indo-Lanka Accord<\/a><\/strong>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/President_of_Sri_Lanka\">President<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/J._R._Jayewardene\">Jayewardene<\/a>&nbsp;issued proclamations enabling the Northern and Eastern Provinces to be one&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Administrative_division\">administrative unit<\/a>&nbsp;administered by one elected Council, creating the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_Eastern_Province,_Sri_Lanka\">North Eastern Province<\/a>.&nbsp;The proclamations were only meant to be a temporary measure until a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Referendum\">referendum<\/a>&nbsp;was held in the Eastern Province on a permanent merger between the two provinces. However, the referendum was never held and successive Sri Lankan presidents issued proclamations annually extending the life of the temporary\u201d entity. The merger was bitterly opposed by Sri Lankan&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nationalists\">nationalists<\/a>. On 14 July 2006, after a long campaign against the merger, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Janatha_Vimukthi_Peramuna\">JVP<\/a>&nbsp;filed three separate&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Petitions\">petitions<\/a>&nbsp;with the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Supreme_Court_of_Sri_Lanka\">Supreme Court of Sri Lanka<\/a>&nbsp;requesting a separate Provincial Council for the East. &nbsp;On&nbsp;<strong>16 October 2006 the Supreme Court ruled that the proclamations issued by President Jayewardene were null and void and had no legal effect. The North-East Province was formally de-merged into the Northern and Eastern provinces on 1 Janaury 2007.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026&nbsp;<strong>AND NOTE<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2015\/10\/04\/a-starry-guide-to-ribbon-urban-development-in-south-western-lanka\/\">https:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2015\/10\/04\/a-starry-guide-to-ribbon-urban-development-in-south-western-lanka\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>************<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>&nbsp;END NOTES<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thuppahis.com\/2020\/09\/05\/the-demarcation-of-provinces-in-ceyon-under-british-rule\/#_ednref1\">[i]<\/a>&nbsp;See&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Provinces_of_Sri_Lanka\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Provinces_of_Sri_Lanka<\/a>. Note that in some Wikipedia accounts the details &nbsp;are erroneous [for eg Uva said to be created in 1993).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Roberts Courtesy Thuppahi&#8217;s Blog After the British imperial power consolidated its conquest of the island of Ceylon in 1815 and 1817\/18, they began to \u2018stitch the island together by commencing a road building programme; while the Colebrooke Cameron Commission which visited the island recommended the creation of five Provinces.\u201d As the Wikipedia account notes,[i]&nbsp;accordingly, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}