Polonnaruwa පොළොන්නරුව, Sri Lanka

Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka (29 August 2005)


The ancient city of Polonnaruwa (Sinhala: පොළොන්නරුව; Tamil: பொலநறுவை) is one of the World Heritage Sites in Sri Lanka.

Polonnaruwa was the capital of the second civilisation to establish itself in ancient Lanka after Anuradhapura. It was the seat of the Sinhala Kingdom between the middle of the 11th century to the 13th century.

Places of Interest in Polonnaruwa

The following are the sights that I have described in Polonnaruwa.

World Heritage Site Inscription Details

Location: N7 54 57 E81 00 02
Inscription Year: 1982
Type of Site: Cultural / Natural / Mixed
Inscription Criteria: I, III, VI

Grew out of the arid plains of the north, the kingdom in Polonnaruwa depended heavily on channelled water to irrigate its fields. This demanded the construction of massive irrigation projects. Although the civilisation in Sri Lanka is not as popular, their engineering feat rival those of Angkor, Egypt and ancient China.

The greatest king in Polonnaruwa is Parakramabahu I, a warrior and great builder. It was he who build the massive Parakrama Samudra. It is worth Polonnaruwa to appreciate the engineering marvels of a civilisation that flourished a millenium ago, that today makes Polonnaruwa worthy of recognition as a World Heritage Site.

More Sights in Polonnaruwa

These are additional sights which I hope to describe in the future.

Visiting Polonnaruwa

If you are traveling in a small group, I would recommend hiring a taxi or car with driver to take you to Polonnaruwa, and then explore it with your own transport. Alternatively you can take the bus or the train from Colombo. Polonnaruwa is about 220 km from Colombo, and the road is a bumpy highway, so the journey will take you almost the whole day. [an error occurred while processing this directive]

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

Destination Sri Lanka

Major Tourist Attractions of Sri Lanka

About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.