Sri Lanka, previously Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is a South Asian island republic. It is located in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal and southeast of the Arabian Sea; the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait separate it from the Indian subcontinent. Sri Lanka shares a maritime boundary with India and the Maldives. Its legislative capital is Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, and its major city and financial center is Colombo. It has a population of roughly 22 million people (2020) and is a multicultural country with many different cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese make up the majority of the country’s population.
