The Veddahs, also called the Wanniyala-aetto or the People of the Forest, are the original inhabitants of the country. The exact numbers of this unique group are highly disputed today. Some reports count as few as 200 Veddahs in Sri Lanka, while others suggest a collection of communities, including Sinhalese and Tamil speaking groups, numbering in the thousands. Some even believe that due to inter-marriage and integration into Sinhalese culture, the Veddahs no longer exist and can no longer claim to be a distinct ethnic group. Only a small and diminishing number of people identifying themselves as Veddah have retained a semblance of their old culture, stressing a hunting lifestyle and maintaining close relationships with nature and their ancestors. Although Sinhalese legends characterise the Veddahs as partly descended from evil spirits, the Veddahs are related to South Indian tribes such as the Vedas of Kerala and even thought to be related to the aborigines of Australia.
The actual origins of the Sinhalese are shrouded in myth. Most believe they came to Sri Lanka from northern India during the 6th century BC. According to their tradition, the Sinhalese people trace their origins back to the union of a lion, or a "sinha", and a North Indian princess, whose descendants became the bloodline of Sinhalese Royalty.
Buddhism arrived from the subcontinent 300 years later and spread rapidly. Buddhism and a sophisticated system of irrigation became the pillars of classical Sinhalese civilization (200 BC-1200 AD) that flourished in the north-central part of the island. The Sinhala language is related to Sanskrit, as is Hindi. The first Sri Lankan kingdom had its capital at Tambapanni, but later shifted to Upatissagama and then to Anuradhapura. The Buddhist religion reinforces the solidarity of the Sinhalese as an ethnic community. In 1988 approximately 93 percent of the Sinhala speakers were Buddhists, and 99.5 percent of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka spoke Sinhala. The most popular Sinhalese folklore, literature, and rituals teach children from an early age the uniqueness of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, the long relationship between Buddhism and the culture and politics of the island.
It is not known when Tamils first settled in Sri Lanka; early settlements occurred in the aftermath of repeated South Indian invasions (ca. 1st to 13th centuries A.D.), and Tamil-speaking fishing folk doubtless settled along the northern and eastern seacoasts at an early date. By the 13th century, there is firm evidence of the rise of a significant Tamil-Hindu social formation in the Jaffna Peninsula, complete with a Hindu king and a palace, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Sinhala Kingdoms in the dry zone areas. The Portuguese subdued the last Hindu king in 1619, destroyed hundreds of Hindu shrines, and forced many of the population to convert to Roman Catholicism. http://www.tamilnation.org/conferences/cnfUS91/
About 9% of Sri Lanka's total population is Muslim. Their presence goes back at least 1000 years and are probably descendants of Arab or Indian Muslim traders. They are scattered all over the island, perhaps more thinly in the South and North, and are known to be mostly involved in trade and business. The Malays are a smaller group of Muslims whose ancestors mostly came with the Dutch from Java. Many of them still speak Malay and there's a concentration of them in Hambantota. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Sri_Lanka & Lonely planet.
Sri Lanka's climate can be described as tropical, in other words, hot and humid. Its position between 5 and 10 north latitude endows the country with a warm climate, moderated by ocean winds and considerable moisture. The mean temperature ranges from a chilly low of 16oC in Nuwara Eliya in the Central Highlands, where even frost may occur for several days in the winter, to a high of 32o C in Trincomalee on the northeast coast. The average yearly temperature for the country as a whole ranges from 28 to 30oC.
Seasons - monsoon
Although Sri Lanka maintains its lovely warm and tropical climate year-round, the island does experience mild changes in rainfall. The rainy monsoon season takes place from October to January; during the rest of the year there is very little precipitation, and all living creatures must conserve precious moisture. The arid northwest and southeast coasts receive the least amount of rain - 600 to 1200 mm per year - concentrated within the short period of the winter monsoon. May, June and July are probably the hottest months of the year and a great time to hit the beach and soak in the sun.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit Sri Lanka in modern times. Francisco de Almeida arrived in 1505, finding the island divided into seven warring kingdoms and unable to fend off intruders. They soon founded a fort at the Muslim port city of Colombo in 1517 and gradually extended their control over the coastal areas. In 1592 the Sinhalese moved their capital to the inland city of Kandy, a location more secure against attack from invaders and the kingdom of Kandy retained their independence during the Portuguese reign.
The Portuguese saw many lowland Sinhalese convert to Christianity, but the Buddhist majority disliked Portuguese occupation and its influences and welcomed any power who might rescue them.
In 1602, when the Dutch captain Joris Spilberg landed, the king at Kandy appealed to him for help. But it was not until 1638 that the Dutch attacked in earnest, and not until 1656 that the Portuguese fort in Colombo fell. By 1660 the Dutch controlled the whole island except the kingdom of Kandy. The Dutch persecuted the Catholics but left the Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims alone.
During the Napoleonic Wars the United Kingdom, fearing that French control of the Netherlands might deliver Sri Lanka to the French, occupied the coastal areas of the island (which they called Ceylon) with little difficulty in 1796. In 1802 by the Treaty of Amiens, the Dutch part of the island was formally ceded to Britain and became a crown colony. In 1803 the British invaded the Kingdom of Kandy in the 1st Kandyan War, but were fiercely resisted. In 1815 Kandy was occupied after the 2nd Kandyan War, finally ending Sri Lankan independence. Following the bloody suppression of the Uva Rebellion or 3rd Kandyan War in 1817 - 1818, a treaty in 1818 preserved the Kandyan monarchy as a British dependency.
The Kandyan peasantry were stripped of their lands by the Wastelands Ordinance, a modern enclosure movement and reduced to penury. The British found that the uplands of Sri Lanka were very suited to coffee, tea and rubber cultivation, and by the mid 19th century, Ceylon tea had become a staple of the British market, bringing great wealth to a small class of white tea planters. To work the estates, the planters imported large numbers of Tamil workers as indentured labourers from south India, who soon made up 10% of the island's population.
Increasing grievances over the denial of civil rights, the mistreatment and abuse of natives by colonial authorities gave rise to a struggle for independence in the 1930s. The Youth Leagues opposed the "Ministers' Memorandum," which asked the colonial authority to increase the powers of the board of ministers without granting popular representation or civil freedoms.
During World War II, the island served as an important Allied military base. A large segment of the British and American fleet were deployed on the island, as were tens of thousands of soldiers committed to the war against Japan in Southeast Asia. Following the war, popular pressure for independence intensified.
On February 4, 1948 the country won its independence as the Commonwealth of Ceylon. Don Stephen Senanayake became the first Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. In 1972, the country became a republic within the Commonwealth, and the name was changed to Sri Lanka.