Jaffna District

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the district in Sri Lanka. For the town, see Jaffna.

Jaffna District

Jaffna is one of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka and is located in the Northern tip of Sri Lanka. The head quarters is located in the Jaffna Municipality. It has 16 administrative divisions of which one is municipality, three are urban councils are the remaining 13 are Pradeshya Sabhas. This district is populated by Sri Lankan Tamils. Jaffna district is divided into four areas geographically. They are Islands, Valikamam, Thenmaradchi and Vadamaradchi. The area of jaffna district is 1,114 km². the population of Jaffna according to 1981 are 738,788 and one of the densely populated districts of Sri lanka. The Population of Jaffna is decreased because of the displacement of Tamils to other districts of the country and out of the country.

It is the district where Jaffna Kingdom was existed in pre-colonial times and ruled by Arya Chakkaravarthys. Important Hindu temples such as Nainativu Nagapoosani Amman Temple, Naguleswaram, Nallur Kanthaswamy temple, Maviddapuram kanthaswamy temple, Selvachannithy, Vallipuram and Buddhist Nagadweepa Vihara are located in the Jaffna District. At independence, Jaffna was one of the three districts located in the Northern Province. But, parts of this district was removed when Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts are created. It is the centre of the Liberation of Sri Lankan Tamils for a separate nation.