Sri Lanka: a palace on a rock, a fort on a headland and a rainforest of endemic trees

Sigiriya is in Matale District, Central Province. UNESCO describes ruins associated with King Kassapa I (477–495) on the slopes and summit of a steep peak, reached by galleries and staircases that begin at the mouth of a lion made of brick and plaster. The Central Cultural Fund divides the western precinct into three kinds of garden: water gardens with symmetrical pools, channels and fountains; boulder gardens, where brick structures and platforms are built among natural boulders; and terraced gardens connected by stairways. The Fund says the underground hydraulic system still partly works and feeds fountains that run in the rainy season, and that cisterns cut into the rock on the summit stored rainwater.[1][2]

Galle’s Old Town occupies a small rocky headland on Sri Lanka’s south-west coast, in the Southern Province. UNESCO records that the Portuguese founded it as a fortified town in the 16th century and that it reached its height under Dutch rule in the 18th. In the Dutch street plan, land was divided into blocks so that buildings gathered in a compact area; rows of houses present their narrow sides to the street, with verandas under tall projecting roofs held up by slender columns. The ramparts do not follow a textbook European plan: they trace the rock outcrops of the promontory, with bastions placed seaward and landward, and coral is often used alongside granite in their structure. UNESCO adds that the fortifications and some public buildings are legally owned by the Department of Archaeology.[3]

Sinharaja Forest Reserve occupies humid lowland terrain across Sabaragamuwa and Southern Provinces in Sri Lanka’s south-west. UNESCO describes a narrow strip of undulating land with ridges and valleys threaded by streams that drain south to the Gin River and north to the Kalu River. Of the 217 endemic trees and woody climbers found in Sri Lanka’s lowland wet zone, UNESCO reports that 139 (64%) have been recorded here, 16 of them rare. UNESCO reports annual rainfall of 3,614 to 5,006 mm over the previous 60 years; UNESCO links the May–July rainfall period to Sri Lanka’s south-west monsoon and the November–January period to its north-east monsoon. IUCN’s World Heritage Outlook adds that species new to science have been found in the reserve since its 1988 inscription, among them the Serendib scops owl (Otus thilohoffmanni, 2004) and the Sinharaja shrew (Crocidura hikmiya, 2007).[4][5]