British Ceylon (
Sinhala:
බ්රිතාන්ය ලංකාව,
Britanya Lankava;
Tamil: பிரித்தானிய இலங்கை,
Birithaniya Ilangai), known contemporaneously as
Ceylon, was a
British Crown colony between 1802 and 1948. At first the area it covered did not include the
Kingdom of Kandy, which was a protectorate from 1815, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of
Sri Lanka.