The Traveling Post Offices

Ceylon (known as Sri Lanka since 1972) is a teardrop-shaped, tropical island located 400 miles north of the equator in the Indian Ocean and less than 20 miles off the southeast coast of India (right). It has an area of approximately 25,000 square miles – about the same as West Virginia and the size of Colorado. The island extends about 270 miles from north to south and 140 miles from east to west. The country’s largest city, Colombo, is located on the southwestern coast and has a metropolitan population of 2 million. The dominant ethnic group, the Buddhist Sinhalese, emigrated from India in the 5th Century B.C. The second largest ethnic group, the Hindu Tamils, came from southern India between the 3rd Century B.C. and the 12th Century A.D. From the 16th Century until independence in 1948, Ceylon was dominated by Europeans; first the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British who made the island a Crown Colony in 1802. During the colonial period, the British brought their particular brand of infrastructure to the island including their postal system and railroads. Ceylon got its first postage stamps in 1857. Ten years later, the first rail line (above) was completed linking the capital Colombo with Kandy, the major city in the southern highlands. That initial line was further extended to the southeast to the town of Bandarawela by 1894