Sri Lanka Provinces & Districts Map
Use the Sri Lanka provinces map to explore 9 provinces and 25 districts, compare local names and try activities for school students and teachers.
Find Colombo, Kandy and other familiar areas on the district map, then follow each district back to its province. Switch views to compare provincial and district boundaries.
Free to explore · No sign-in · For Sri Lankan school students, teachers and curious learners
Created by HariTools · Updated
Sri Lanka Provinces & Districts Explorer
34 places to explore. Touch an area for its name, then choose the arrow for details.
Find a province or district
9 places. Switch between provinces and districts to compare the two levels.
Map layers
Extra detail loads when enabled. Background river sections and the water-body overview are unreviewed and cannot be selected. The overview includes lagoons and omits some smaller water bodies.
Learn by exploring
Three things to try
- 01
Find your province
Choose a province you know. Select Whole island and describe where it lies using north, south, east and west. Open its details to find the districts within it.
Try it on the map → - 02
Connect a district to its province
Switch the map to 25 districts. Find Colombo, Kandy or Jaffna. Read the province name in its details, then explore that province and find the district again.
Try it on the map → - 03
Compare neighbouring areas
Choose two neighbouring districts and describe their positions. Add rivers or major cities as references. Explain why a city name and a district name can refer to different things.
Try it on the map →
For teachers · Suggested 10-minute activity
Build a province and district picture
- 2 minutes — Start with familiar places. Ask students which province and district they live in. Find both together.
- 5 minutes — Explore in pairs. Give each pair a province. Ask them to list its districts, locate a neighbour and describe their positions.
- 3 minutes — Compare and explain. Discuss the difference between a province, a district and a city. Ask what the map colours tell us, and what they do not.
Use a shared screen or ask students to record names and observations on paper. Compare available Sinhala and Tamil names without asking students to guess missing translations.
Start simply: find your own province and district together. For a challenge, describe a neighbouring district so a partner can find it from your clues, then check its province.
How to read the provinces and districts map
Sri Lanka has 9 provinces and 25 districts. A province contains several districts. A city can share a name with a district, but the city and the district are different places: the district covers a wider administrative area.
Start with the 9 provinces view. Choose a coloured area to see its name and the districts within it. Change the list filter to 25 districts for a closer look. The details panel links each district back to its province.
Move around the map
Drag to move the map and pinch with two fingers to zoom. On a laptop, focus the map to use the touchpad; pinch gestures also zoom. The +, − and Whole island controls work with a mouse or keyboard. Arrow keys move the map and Home resets it.
On a phone, touching an area shows a small name preview. Choose the arrow when you want more details. You can keep exploring without opening a large panel.
Compare provinces with rivers and lakes
Open Map layers to show major city dots, mapped river sections or water-body outlines. These optional backgrounds help you recognise places. Rivers do not always follow administrative boundaries, and the city dots are a small reference selection rather than every city or district capital.
To inspect a water feature by name, open the Sri Lanka rivers map or the lakes, reservoirs and tanks map. These explorers show selected mapped features rather than a complete national inventory.
About the map data
The boundaries and available local names come from a pinned OpenStreetMap source snapshot. The source boundaries include coastal waters; the display is clipped to the national land outline to make the areas easier to recognise. This outline comes from an independent 2017 source, so coastal details can differ from the 2026 administrative mapping. The map is for learning and general reference; source mapping may contain errors.
Colours distinguish areas. They do not represent population, size rankings or political parties. This explorer does not show divisional secretariats, Grama Niladhari divisions or electoral boundaries. Use the Sri Lanka administrative division finder for the available administrative hierarchy below district level.
Sri Lanka's 9 provinces and 25 districts
Browse Sri Lanka's districts grouped by province. Each name opens the full-screen map with that area selected.
Sources & map details
Boundary geometry and available local names are from the OpenStreetMap extract dated 2026-10-16, distributed by Geofabrik under ODbL 1.0. Each area links to its source relation. Missing local names are left blank rather than translated without evidence.
The province and district hierarchy is also documented in the Department of Census and Statistics’ Census 2024 Preliminary Report (Table 01). These learning boundaries are not a legal boundary determination.
Keep exploring Sri Lanka
Compare administrative areas with the Sri Lanka rivers map and the lakes, reservoirs and tanks map, or browse every playground.