Dutch Governorate of Ceylon Nederlands-Ceylon | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1640–1796 | |||||||||||||
 Flag  Coat of arms | |||||||||||||
 Dutch territorial expansion in Ceylon 1690. | |||||||||||||
| Status | Governorate | ||||||||||||
| Capital | Galle Colombo | ||||||||||||
| Common languages | Sinhala,Tamil, andDutch | ||||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||||
• 1640–1640 | Willem Jacobszoon Coster | ||||||||||||
• 1794–1796 | Johan van Angelbeek | ||||||||||||
| Historical era | Imperialism | ||||||||||||
• Established | 13 March 1640 | ||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 16 February 1796 | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Today part of |  Sri Lanka | ||||||||||||
Dutch Ceylon existed from 1640 to 1796. It is calledLandesi Lankava inSinhala.
In the early17th century,Sri Lanka (which was called Ceylon at the time), was divided between thePortuguese, and several localkingdoms. The kingdoms were fighting against each other very often. Although the Portuguese were not winning the war, their rule was rather burdensome to the people of the areas they controlled. At some point, the king ofKandy asked the Dutch for help. TheDutch East India Company ran the country. Even though they managed to control large areas near the coast, they did not control the mountain areas and theKandxan kingdom in the center of the island.[1] The Dutch interest in Ceylon was to have a stronghold against theIberians (Spanish and Portuguese) at the time.
