Diyatalawa (දියතලාව), (தியதலாவ), meaning 'the watered plain') is a former garrison town in the central highlands of Sri Lanka, in the Badulla District of Uva Province.
[2][3] Early in World War II the camp was reopened and German nationals resident in Hong Kong and Singapore were imprisoned there, together with a number of Buddhist monks of German extraction, such as Nyanaponika and Govinda Anagarika, who had acquired British citizenship.
After World War II the Royal Navy maintained a rest station named HMS Uva, which were also sometimes used by RAF personnel, such as from RAF Negombo/Katunayake, and their families; the facilities were later taken over by the Royal Ceylon Navy in 1956, commissioning it as HMCYS Rangalla and established its training centre there.
Fox Hill (Nariya Kanda in Sinhalese) was named after the engraving of the whole slope facing the railway station of Diyatalawa, by the British soldiers at the canteen town, with an image of a fox carved in with hundreds of rough rocks of quartz that were once lying scattered all over the hill.
Due to the high altitude, the garrison town of Diyatalawa located between the hill station retreats of Haputale[5] and Bandarawela[6] of central highlands[7] has a much cooler climate than the lowlands of Sri Lanka, with a mean annual temperature of 19 °C.