Describe the ethnic composition of Sri Lanka.
A . Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about 80 km East of the Southern tip of India. It is home to more than two crore people. Sri Lanka has been a centre of Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times. It is a multi-religious and multi-Ethnic nation.
Beside Buddhism (69.1 per cent), religions like Hinduism (7.1 per cent), Christianity (6.2 per cent), Islam (7.6 per cent) and others are also there. Here, the major social groups are the Sinhala speakers (74 per cent) and Tamil speakers (18 per cent). Among Tamils, there are two sub-groups '
(i) Sri Lankan Tamils (13 per cent)
(ii) Indian Tamils (5 per cent). .
Sri Lankan Tamils are the natives of the country and the rest who migrated from India during colonial times are called Indian Tamils. The main languages spoken by the people are Sinhala, Tamil and English.