Sri Jayawardenepura

Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte lies immediately southeast of Colombo’s commercial centre yet holds a distinct role as Sri Lanka’s legislative capital. Its municipal limits converge with Kolonnawa to the north, the Kotikawatta–Mulleriyawa precinct to the northeast, Kaduwela to the east, Maharagama to the southeast, Dehiwala–Mount Lavinia to the southwest and the Colombo Municipal area to the west. This compact jurisdiction emerged as an administrative hub in 1982, assembling a cluster of formerly separate suburbs into a single entity. Its name, rendered in English as “the blessed fortress city of growing victory,” echoes a medieval legacy that has shaped its identity across centuries.

Within its boundaries, everyday life unfolds around a transport network anchored by Nugegoda. The Kelani Valley railway line calls at Nugegoda station, linking the city with Colombo and points inland. Adjacent stands the principal bus terminus, from which routes fan out to neighbouring suburbs. A smaller stop at Pita Kotte supplements the network, while a Central Transport Board depot at Udahamulla handles maintenance and dispatch. In 2005, planners advanced a waterborne link between Bataramulla—near Parliament Junction—and the Wellawatte canal close to Marine Drive. Designed for half-hour traversals, the route was to include landings at the Kotte Marsh, Nawala, the Open University campus, Apollo Hospital, Duplication Road, Wellawatte and St Peter’s College. A naval pilot project tested a segment between the Open University and Wellawatte, foreshadowing a broader commuter service.

The city’s climate holds to the tropical rainforest classification yet bears subequatorial traits. The Intertropical Convergence Zone governs rainfall more than steady trade winds. Temperature swings remain minor throughout the year. Every month receives at least sixty millimetres of rain, placing the locale squarely in the Af category of the Köppen scale. February averages roughly 63 mm and registers as the driest interval, but none of the twelve months dips below the sixty-millimetre threshold. Seasonal shifts appear in humidity and precipitation rather than temperature.

Sport occupies a visible presence amid Kotte’s parks and private clubs. Cricket dominates public grounds, reflecting its nationwide appeal. Football, once eclipsed by cricket after 1980, regains followers. In earlier decades, four clubs—Lido, Welikada Progress, Welikada Red Star and Welikada United—shared space at Rajagiriya’s EW Perera Park. A pavilion erected in the 1970s succumbed to demolition under the Jayawardene administration, and teams dispersed. Play continued at Obeysekerapura until the 1990s, when municipal authorities replaced the old grounds with the Chandra Silva Stadium. A portion of the site yielded land for an HSBC office block. In 2007, with support from the Ministry of Urban Development, the council completed the stadium’s first phase on a reclaimed rubbish dump behind the bank. Recent years have seen renewed interest in football. The local association’s new training complex features a sprinkler-equipped pitch, a fitness gym and supplementary facilities intended to mould individual players into a team. Beyond cricket and football, membership clubs offer tennis, squash, billiards, indoor cricket, badminton and table tennis. Horse riding lessons occur at the Premadasa Riding School in Nugegoda.

Daily life in Kotte reflects its administrative status more than a tourist draw. Although some visitors arrive to satisfy curiosity, the locality remains chiefly residential, with expatriates among its tenants. A handful of hotels, restaurants and retail outlets support both officials and long-term guests. Shops line major roads, while eateries cater to varied budgets.

Beneath this modern grid lie remnants of a 13th-century water fortress. The village of Darugama occupied the meeting point of the Diyawanna Oya and the Kolonnawa Oya. Natural marshes flanked two sides of a triangular stronghold; on the landward side, builders excavated a moat whose inner bank extended nearly 2.5 square kilometres. Ramparts of kabook, a laterite rock, rose roughly 2.5 metres and spanned over ten metres in breadth. The local chieftain Nissanka Alagakkonara supervised this construction. Contemporary chroniclers offer mixed accounts of his tenure. Ibn Battuta recorded him as ruling in Kurunegala, while other sources describe him as the guardian of Raigama Korale in today’s Kalutara District. In one episode, Alagakkonara held Arya Chakravarthy’s army at bay before the fortress and defeated an invasion fleet off Panadura’s shore.

The city won its formal title in 1391, when Prince Sapumal, also known as Sembahap Perumal, conquered Jaffna and affixed the epithet Sri Jayawardenepura. Thereafter, it served as the capital of the Kingdom of Kotte until the late 16th century. Within the walls rose constructions of laterite and clay. One quarry remains visible on the grounds of Ananda Sasthralaya, a local school. The king’s palace featured walls of quartz said to catch the moonlight, surmounted by a gilded spire and enclosed by gardens fed by natural springs. Adjacent lay the three-storey Dalada Maligawa, which housed the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha, and the Arama, a five-storey residence for sixty bhikkus under a Sangha Raja. A royal treasury safeguarded treasures, while the Kotavehara temple stood at Baddagana outside the moat. The monarch’s cemetery sat nearby at Veherakanda. Training grounds known as Angampitiya occupied the margin of the inner moat.

Forty years after its elevation, Sri Jayawardenepura confronted new actors. The Portuguese reached Ceylon in 1505 under the guise of trade. Their entry into Kotte proved cordial at first, yet ambitions shifted toward military and monopoly control. By 1565, they had seized the city. Repeated assaults by the Kingdom of Sitawaka compelled the occupiers to abandon Kotte and designate Colombo as their new centre. Traces of the original moat and rampart endure, though modern encroachments have overrun parts; in places, residences, workshops and even sanitation structures sit atop ancient fortifications.

The 19th century ushered in renewed growth. Urban expansion absorbed vestiges of the old citadel as builders harvested laterite and clay to erect roads and bridges. Some of these materials came to form the Victoria Bridge spanning the Kelani River. Archaeological layers continue to surface—often in the soles of passersby—revealing a landscape woven from strategic design, colonial disruption and contemporary administration.

Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte thus stands at the intersection of past and present. Its marsh-lined canals and broad avenues trace a defensive blueprint conceived in the Middle Ages. Its legislative assemblies occupy offices within sight of former palace sites. Seasonal rains nourish grounds where bhikkus once trod. Trains and buses follow lines set by colonial planners as passenger boats await revival along ancient waterways. In congregations of lawmakers, in playgrounds where cricketers aim covers and bats, and in lines of taxis and tuk-tuks, the city’s layers of history persist. The fortress city of growing victory remains, in word and form, both a guardian of national governance and a keeper of its own complex narrative.