[4][5] Batticaloa District is located in the east of Sri Lanka in the Eastern Province.

The population of the district, like the rest of the east and north, was affected by the civil war.

[9] Several hundred thousand Sri Lankan Tamils, possibly as much as one million, emigrated to the West during the war.

[10] Many Sri Lankan Tamils also moved to the relative safety of the capital Colombo.

In 2016 the district was one of the poorest in Sri Lanka and had the fourth-highest incidence of extreme poverty according to the World Bank.