Sri Lankan rivers: a sourced names pilot

Learning objectives

• Recognize the two river identities currently represented in this pilot.
• Compare their sourced English, Sinhala and Tamil names.
• Follow the references behind a name and distinguish an identity record from river-course geography.

Why this resource exists

Haritools is building curated, machine-readable Sri Lankan datasets so future educational resources can share stable identities, multilingual names and traceable sources. This first rivers resource makes the available records readable before any geographic visualization is introduced.

The pilot currently represents Mahaweli River and Kelani River. It is intentionally small. Inclusion does not imply completeness, importance rankings or geographic coverage.

Reading the directory

Each record has a stable machine ID and names in three languages. The names are transcribed from the cited authorities, rather than translated by Haritools. A language-specific reference accompanies each name below.

A river identity tells us which named entity a record represents. River-course geometry would describe its path as coordinates. Neither pilot record currently supplies geometry. A missing line is an unavailable dataset field, not a claim about the river itself.

Methodology and limitations

Haritools provides a curated machine-readable representation based on cited sources; it does not declare itself an authority. The references currently support names, not a complete description of either river.

This pilot supplies no river lengths, tributaries, origins, mouths, basin boundaries, district relationships or coordinates. None have been inferred from a name or from an illustrative map. Source publication dates and access dates are separate, and report years are not treated as verified publication dates.

Dataset schema version describes the contract; dataset release describes the curated records. The dataset review date describes the curation review, rather than a historical or effective date for river geography.

Future geographic visualization will require appropriately licensed, sourced and reviewed river-course geometry. The accessible directory will remain available alongside any future map. This page currently contains no map.