{"id":156257,"date":"2026-05-17T16:26:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=156257"},"modified":"2026-05-17T16:26:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:26:38","slug":"2024-census-in-original-major-ethnic-categories-of-ceylon-pre-1911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/05\/17\/2024-census-in-original-major-ethnic-categories-of-ceylon-pre-1911\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Census in Original Major Ethnic Categories of Ceylon (Pre-1911)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The 2024 census has been released. The delay casts serious doubts about its accuracy as the last two censuses are being looked at with suspicion that they may have been tweaked for easy acceptance by society masking the increases and decreases of ethnic populations. However, the foregoing assumes the released version is correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It follows major ethnic classifications of Ceylon before 1911. In 1911 a number of artificial ethnic groups were introduced with ethno-political aspirations in mind. The analysis is based on a number of assumptions \u2013 within their broader respective communities, the Malabar and Coromandel population composition remained same as before subject to the last assumption; their population growth rate has remained same and the emigration percentage of Malabar populations was higher than Coromandel populations based on the net population reduction in predominantly Malabar and Coromandel districts comparing 1971 to 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite political dominance within the Hindu community, Malabar origin Hindus are only 3.9% of the population compared to Coromandel origin Hindus at 8.5%. Policy making must take this fact into account without going by the loudest voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within Tamil communities, Malabar origin Christians are mostly non-Catholic Christians whereas Coromandel origin Christians are mostly Roman Catholic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to the last census, total Islam population percentage shows a very large increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall population growth rate declined from 2012 census to the 2024 census due to the gradual economic collapse between 2012 and 2024 forcing people to leave the country, delaying marriages and giving up on having children by a significant section of the population. SRI LANKA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

100.0%<\/td><\/tr>
\u00a0SRI LANKA<\/td><\/td><\/td>\u00a0100.0%<\/td><\/tr>
NATIVES<\/td><\/td>74.1%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td>Sinhalese<\/td>74.1%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Buddhist<\/td>69.8%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Christians<\/td>4.3%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td>Vedda<\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
PEOPLE OF INDIAN EXTRACTION<\/td>25.8%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td>Malabar Origin<\/td>8.5%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Hindus<\/td>3.9%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Muslims<\/td>3.7%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Christians<\/td>0.9%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Other<\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td>Coromandel Origin<\/td>17.2%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Hindus<\/td>8.5%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Muslims<\/td>6.9%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Christians<\/td>1.7%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Other<\/td>0.1%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td>Other Indian<\/td>0.1%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
EUROPEANS<\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Europeans<\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Burgher<\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Other<\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
PEOPLE OF MALAY EXTRACTION<\/td>0.1%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Malays<\/td>0.1%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td>Other<\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td><\/td><\/td> <\/td><\/tr>
OTHER<\/td><\/td>0.0%<\/td><\/tr>
 <\/td> <\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara The 2024 census has been released. The delay casts serious doubts about its accuracy as the last two censuses are being looked at with suspicion that they may have been tweaked for easy acceptance by society masking the increases and decreases of ethnic populations. However, the foregoing assumes the released version is correct. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156257","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=156257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156259,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156257\/revisions\/156259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}