Sri Jayawardenepura

Sri Jayawardenepura, or Sri Jayavardhanapura, city in western Sri Lanka, in Western Province. A suburb on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Jayawardenepura is located in a low-lying area encircled by lagoons, rivers, and swamps. In 1982 the town became the legislative capital of Sri Lanka—Colombo remains the commercial capital—and is the site of the new parliament building. Sri Jayawardenepura was developed to take the population overspill from Colombo, but there are still large areas of paddy fields and plantations in and around the city. For 150 years Sri Jayawardenepura (formerly known as Kotte) was the capital of the Sinhalese Kingdom of Kotte, which from 1450 to 1477 unified all of Sri Lanka under one rule. In 1565 Colombo replaced Kotte as the capital of the kingdom. Population 117,000 (2003 estimate).