From the semi-legendary golden-lion banner of the ancient Sinhalese kingdom of Anuradhapura, through a South Indian conquest, a restored medieval kingdom, a long chain of shifting capitals, a highland kingdom that outlasted two European empires, successive Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial administrations, independence as a Commonwealth dominion, and finally a republic under a new name — ten flags across roughly 2,400 years, anchored throughout by one enduring symbol: a lion bearing a sword.
That lion is the thread running the whole way through. Sinhalese royal tradition traces it to the island's own founding legend, and while no flag actually survives from the earliest centuries, the same gold lion — formalized under the Kingdom of Kandy and carried into the modern national flag adopted at independence — is still at the center of Sri Lanka's flag today, alongside stripes added since 1951 to represent the island's Tamil and Muslim minorities.
Scope of this page: the island of Sri Lanka (historically Ceylon), c. 377 BCE–present, ten political entries. Dates for the earliest Sinhalese kingdoms follow the traditional chronology preserved in the island's own chronicles (the Mahavamsa and related texts) and should be read as the conventional reckoning rather than as independently attested fact. A note on overlap: for roughly two and a quarter centuries (1592–1815) two flags flew over the island at once — the Kandyan lion banner in the independent highland interior, and successive Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial flags on the coast. This page cannot show two simultaneous tracks in one column, so the Kingdom of Kandy entry and the Portuguese entry below it are placed by narrative sequence rather than strict start-date order; each entry's text flags exactly where the overlap runs. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.
Two divides, four centuries apart
Sri Lanka's own real coastal outline, split into the pieces that were, at different points, ruled by entirely different powers: successive European colonial administrations on the coast against the independent interior Kingdom of Kandy in the central highlands (1592–1815) — and, over a century and a half later, the government in Colombo against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's de facto administration of the Tamil-majority north and east during the 1983–2009 civil war. Press play, or drag the slider.
Kandy was never conquered by any of the three earlier European powers. The Portuguese and Dutch both controlled only the coastal lowlands; Kandy held out as a fully independent kingdom until the British finally took it in 1815 — the first time in over two centuries that one power ruled the whole island. That single-government status held for over a century and a half, until the LTTE's insurgency carved out its own de facto state across the Jaffna peninsula and the eastern coast from the mid-1980s until its military defeat in 2009. The borders below only solidify for the spans the pieces were genuinely governed apart.
2009–present
Kingdom of Anuradhapura
Schematic internal partition on a real traced coastal border — the coast/Kandy dividing line approximates the historical highland frontier, and the north/east line approximates the LTTE's Vanni-Jaffna-Batticaloa control area during the civil war; neither is a surveyed boundary.
maroon lion panel with sword and four bo leaves, green and orange hoist stripes
Migration & conquest:Emigration: Tamil refugees fleeing the civil war (1983–2009)Emigration: labor migration to the Gulf states (1980s–)
Who & why: a new constitution on 22 May 1972 renames Ceylon as the Republic of Sri Lanka, replacing the British monarch as head of state with a Sri Lankan president while remaining in the Commonwealth. The republic's early decades are dominated by the 1983–2009 civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who fought for an independent Tamil state in the north and east; the conflict ends with the LTTE's military defeat in May 2009. The flag itself is untouched by the war and has not changed since 1978, when a second constitution again renamed the country the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka without altering the banner.
What it represents: four stylized bo (sacred fig) leaves are added to the maroon lion panel's corners in 1972, completing the current design: a gold lion bearing a sword on maroon, framed in gold, with green and orange vertical stripes at the hoist representing the Muslim and Tamil communities respectively.
Paint guide
Proportions1:2, fixed by law.
LayoutGreen stripe, then orange stripe, at the hoist; maroon field with gold border carrying the passant lion (holding a kastane sword) and a bo leaf in each corner.
Maroon#7C2331
Gold#EAB308
Green#007749
Orange#FF7900
the 1951 lion flag with hoist stripes, before the 1972 bo leaves
1948 – 1972
Dominion of Ceylon
DominionD. S. SenanayakeNo official state religion (dominion era)
Migration & conquest:Emigration: repatriation of Indian Tamils to India (1964–)
Ruling house:House of Windsor
Who & why: Ceylon gains independence from Britain on 4 February 1948 as a self-governing dominion within the Commonwealth, keeping the British monarch as head of state represented by a governor-general. At independence the new government revives the Kandyan lion as the national flag, but without any stripes; after protests from Tamil and Muslim political leaders that the plain lion flag represented only the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, the government adds the green and orange vertical stripes in March 1951 to represent the Muslim and Tamil communities.
What it represents: the maroon panel, gold lion, and kastane sword are carried over directly from the Kandyan kingdom's own banner; the 1951 stripes are the first change to the design, made explicitly to broaden what the flag stands for.
Paint guide
Proportions1:2.
LayoutAs the 1972 flag above, but without the four bo leaves (added 1972); plain lion only from 1948–51, stripes added 1951.
Maroon#7C2331
Gold#EAB308
Green#007749
Orange#FF7900
blue ensign, Union Jack canton, colonial badge in the fly
1796 – 1948
British Ceylon
ColonyFrederick NorthOfficial religious neutrality
Migration & conquest:Immigration: Indian Tamil plantation laborers (1830s–)
Ruling house:House of HanoverHouse of Windsor
Who & why: British forces seize the Dutch maritime provinces in 1796 during the French Revolutionary Wars, formalized by the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, and Ceylon becomes a Crown colony administered directly from London rather than through the East India Company. In 1815 the British depose the last Kandyan king and annex the highland kingdom under the Kandyan Convention, ending the entry above and uniting the whole island under a single government for the first time in its history. British rule brings plantation agriculture (coffee, then tea and rubber), a road and rail network, and the administrative and educational institutions the independent state inherits in 1948.
What it represents: the standard colonial blue ensign — a Union Jack canton on a blue field, with the colony's own badge in the fly, here shown schematically rather than with the badge's full pictorial detail.
Paint guide
Proportions1:2, standard colonial ensign ratio.
LayoutBlue field, Union Jack canton, circular colony badge centered in the fly.
Ensign blue#1E2F96
Jack red#A4302A
Jack white#F4EFE1
Dutch tricolor with the VOC (Dutch East India Company) monogram
1658 – 1796
Dutch Ceylon
ColonyRijcklof van GoensDutch Reformed Church (official)
Who & why: the Dutch East India Company (VOC), invited by the King of Kandy to help expel the Portuguese, instead takes the coastal territory for itself, completing its conquest of the last Portuguese strongholds by 1658. Dutch Ceylon runs almost entirely as a VOC commercial enterprise focused on the cinnamon trade, governed from Colombo, and — as under the Portuguese before them — the Dutch never subdue the interior: the Kingdom of Kandy, from the previous entry, remains independent in the highlands throughout this entire period, fighting repeated wars with the VOC that neither side wins outright.
What it represents: the Dutch Prince's Flag/tricolor (here shown in its later red-white-blue form) flown with the VOC monogram marking company rather than state territory, the standard practice across all VOC possessions in Asia.
Paint guide
Proportions2:3, typical Dutch flag ratio.
LayoutHorizontal red-white-blue tricolor, VOC monogram centered on the white band.
Red#A4302A
White#F4EFE1
Blue#204B5C
white field, red cross of the Order of Christ — the mark Portuguese ships and forts flew across Asia
1505 – 1658
Portuguese Ceylon
ColonyLourenço de AlmeidaRoman Catholicism (official)
Who & why: a Portuguese fleet under Lourenço de Almeida reaches the island in 1505 seeking the cinnamon trade, and Portugal builds a fort at Colombo by 1517, gradually extending control over the coastal lowlands and the Kingdom of Kotte through alliance and conquest across the 16th century; King Dharmapala's 1597 bequest of Kotte's territory to Portugal on his death completes their hold on the coast. Portugal never conquers the interior highlands: the Kingdom of Kandy, described in the entry above, holds out as an independent Sinhalese kingdom throughout this entire period and repeatedly defeats Portuguese expeditions sent against it.
What it represents: no separate flag existed for "Ceylon" specifically under Portuguese rule; ships, forts, and trading posts across the Portuguese Asian empire flew variants of the white flag bearing the red cross of the Order of Christ, the military order that financed and blessed Portugal's maritime expansion.
Paint guide
ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded for colonial-era use; shown at 3:2.
LayoutWhite field, red cross pattée (simplified here as a plain cross with a white keyline).
White#F4EFE1
Cross red#A4302A
Kandyan lion flag — gold sword-bearing lion on maroon, framed in gold
1592 – 1815
Kingdom of Kandy
Kingdom, independentVimaladharmasuriya IBuddhism (Theravada, state religion)
Ruling house:Nayakkar dynasty (Kandy)
Who & why: as the coastal Kingdom of Kotte collapses under Portuguese pressure through the 1590s, Kandy — a highland principality already established since the 15th century — becomes the last fully sovereign Sinhalese kingdom, consolidating under King Vimaladharmasuriya I around 1592. Kandy holds out in the mountainous interior for over two centuries, defeating Portuguese and later Dutch expeditions and playing each colonial power off against the other, until internal court politics and a final British campaign end its independence with the Kandyan Convention of 2 March 1815 — a date remembered as the end of nearly 2,400 years of Sinhalese self-rule on the island. Note that Kandy's own span runs concurrently with the Portuguese and Dutch coastal entries below and after it on this page, not after them; the overlap is real and is explained in each entry.
What it represents: the Kandyan kings' banner — a gold lion holding a kastane sword on a maroon field, framed in gold — is the direct ancestor of Sri Lanka's modern national flag, carried forward essentially unchanged at independence in 1948.
gold sword-bearing lion on maroon, unbordered — reconstructed for the Kotte-era kingdoms
1236 – 1592
Later Sinhalese kingdoms (Dambadeniya, Gampola, Kotte)
Kingdom, independentVijayabahu IIIBuddhism (Theravada, state religion)
Who & why: after Polonnaruwa's decline, the Sinhalese royal capital shifts repeatedly — to Dambadeniya, then Yapahuwa, Gampola, and by the early 1400s to Kotte, near modern Colombo — under renewed pressure from South Indian raids and, later, the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505. Kotte becomes the dominant Sinhalese kingdom of the era but fragments under succession disputes and Portuguese interference through the 16th century, with the highland principality of Kandy growing steadily more independent as Kotte weakens, setting up the transition to the entry below.
What it represents: the gold lion holding a sword becomes the settled royal emblem of the Sinhalese kings across this period, the design later inherited whole by the Kingdom of Kandy; shown here without Kandy's gold border, since no single fixed banner is attested for the shifting Kotte-era court.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no fixed flag recorded; shown as a reconstructed device.
LayoutMaroon field, passant lion holding a sword.
Maroon#7C2331
Gold#EAB308
gold lion on maroon, restored after Chola rule — reconstructed
1070 – 1236
Kingdom of Polonnaruwa
Kingdom, independentVijayabahu IBuddhism (Theravada, state religion)
Who & why: Vijayabahu I drives out the occupying Chola administration in 1070 after a seventeen-year campaign, restoring independent Sinhalese rule and moving the capital inland to Polonnaruwa, safer from coastal raids than Anuradhapura. The kingdom reaches its peak under Parakramabahu I (1153–1186), who unifies the island and builds an extensive irrigation network, but repeated South Indian invasions and succession struggles weaken it through the 1200s, and the capital is abandoned by 1236 as the court shifts west to Dambadeniya.
What it represents: royal tradition carries the gold lion forward from Anuradhapura as the restored kingdom's own emblem; as with the entry before it, no flag survives from this period and the design here is an informed reconstruction based on the same lion tradition later fixed by the Kandyan kings.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag; shown as a reconstructed device.
LayoutMaroon field, passant lion (no sword attested this early).
Maroon#7C2331
Gold#EAB308
gold field with the Chola dynasty's tiger emblem — reconstructed
993 – 1070
Chola conquest
Foreign conquestRajaraja IHinduism (Shaivism, state religion)
Migration & conquest:Conquered by: Chola Empire (993–1070)
Ruling house:House of Chola
Who & why: the Chola dynasty of southern India, under Raja Raja I, invades and sacks Anuradhapura around 993, and his son Rajendra I completes the conquest of the Sinhalese kingdom by around 1017, annexing the island's northern and central regions as a Chola province administered from Polonnaruwa. Sinhalese resistance continues from the south throughout, and the occupation ends when Vijayabahu I finally expels Chola forces in 1070, opening the entry below.
What it represents: no Ceylon-specific Chola banner is separately attested; the tiger was the dynasty's own royal emblem across its South Indian and Sri Lankan territories alike, shown here on the Chola dynastic gold as an informed reconstruction of the ruling power's own symbol rather than a locally documented flag.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag; shown as a reconstructed dynastic device.
LayoutGold field, dark red-brown tiger emblem (the Chola royal symbol).
Gold#C9A13C
Tiger red-brown#8A2A1E
the legendary golden lion banner — informed reconstruction, not a surviving artifact
c. 377 BCE – 993 CE
Kingdom of Anuradhapura
Kingdom, independentPandukabhayaBuddhism (state religion from c. 250 BCE)
Ruling house:Lambakanna dynasty
Who & why: Sinhalese tradition, recorded centuries later in the island's chronicles, traces the kingdom to Pandukabhaya's founding of Anuradhapura as his capital around 377 BCE, and further back still to the semi-legendary Prince Vijaya, said to have arrived from India and become the island's first Sinhalese king around the 6th century BCE — a founding story, not an independently datable event. Anuradhapura goes on to anchor Sinhalese Buddhist civilization for well over a thousand years, developing major irrigation works and monasteries, before South Indian pressure culminates in the Chola sack of the city around 993, opening the entry above.
What it represents: a golden lion banner is traditionally associated with Vijaya and early Sinhalese kingship — the lion (sinha) is the root of "Sinhalese" itself — but no flag from this era actually survives, and the earliest concretely attested lion-flag artwork dates many centuries later, from the Kandyan kingdom. What is shown here is an honest reconstruction of that much later tradition projected onto the whole span, not a claim that this exact banner flew in 377 BCE.
Paint guide
ProportionsN/A — no attested flag from any point in this span.
LayoutMaroon field, gold lion (no sword attested this early), following later Kandyan tradition.
Maroon#7C2331
Gold#EAB308
Reading the tags
Kingdom, independent — sovereign under its own crown
Foreign conquest — ruled by an outside power's own crown
Colony — administered by a European colonial power
Dominion — self-governing within the Commonwealth, shared crown
Republic — sovereign state under its own head of state
Leader — the named ruler most associated with the era's start
State religion — the official/established faith, not the population's
Find the records
Family history research for Sri Lanka lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.