Colombo kept the money after Sri Lanka moved its capital
Colombo is Sri Lanka's largest city and financial centre, and still its executive and judicial capital, with some 5.6 million people in the metro area. The British made it the island's capital in 1815; when administration moved to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte in 1978, Colombo was named commercial capital.
The Portuguese brought the name Colombo in 1505. It may come from Kolon thota, port on the Kelani River, or from Kola-amba-thota, harbour of leafy mango trees. The oldest Sinhala grammar, written in the thirteenth century, lists kolamba, fort or harbour, among words taken from the indigenous Vedda language. Ibn Battuta called the town Kalanpu in the fourteenth century. Arab traders had settled there from around the eighth century to control commerce between the Sinhalese kingdoms and the wider world.
Dom Lourenço de Almeida's Portuguese struck a cinnamon deal with Parakramabahu VIII of Kotte, set up a trading post, drove out the Muslim residents and began a fort in 1517. Sinhalese kings from Sitawaka repeatedly besieged them, but after that kingdom fell in 1593 Colombo became their coastal capital. The district is still called Fort, with the presidential palace and most five-star hotels, while neighbouring Pettah, from the Sinhala for outer fort, is a busy market.
Allied with the king of Kandy from 1638, the Dutch took Colombo in 1656 after a long siege from which just 93 Portuguese walked out alive. They then kept the rich cinnamon lands for the Dutch East India Company until 1796, when the British arrived. Unlike earlier rulers, who used it mainly as a fort, the British built homes and civic buildings around the walls, creating the modern city; some of their tram tracks and granite paving survive.
The Colombo Municipal Council first met on 16 January 1866, when the area held about 80,000 people. Independence came peacefully in 1948, and Portuguese, Dutch and British traces still colour the city's buildings, names, food and dress.
Source: Colombo
