Central Province
Central Province hosts Kandy's Buddhist Tooth Temple and hill tea plantations—10.7% of GDP, third-largest, recovering from 2022 crisis.
Central Province hosts Sri Lanka's hill country, where British colonial tea plantations transformed highland forests into the export commodity that still defines the national brand. Kandy, the last Sinhalese kingdom capital before British conquest (1815), preserves the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic—Buddhism's most venerated site in Sri Lanka. The province contributes 10.7% of national GDP (2024), third-largest, with services (10.7% of national total) and agriculture (13.9%) as key sectors. The tea estates created a distinct labor population: Tamil workers brought from India by British planters remain a marginalized community two centuries later. Nuwara Eliya's colonial hill station architecture attracts domestic tourists escaping Colombo heat, though international arrivals concentrate on coastal areas. Sri Lanka's 5% GDP growth in 2024 marked strong recovery from the 2022 economic crisis that saw sovereign default and political collapse. By 2026, Central Province's tea economy faces climate adaptation challenges while tourism growth could diversify beyond plantation dependency.