[9] Its economy was based on fishing and coconut cultivation, which was replaced by tourism when its golden sandy beaches were widely discovered in the 1960s.

[18] Live coral washed ashore with the waves are planted on coconut shell-shaped cement blocks dropped and nursed in the medium-deep seabed of Hikkaduwa.

[27] It features both local and international professional DJ's, famous musicians and world class dancers.

Over sixty species of endemic birds, including herons, sandpipers, terns, egrets, and kingfishers, as well as rarer species such as the lesser whistling duck, the Asian palm swift, the white-breasted waterhen, the black bittern and Loten's sunbird.

Beneath the Indian Ocean lies a number of coral reefs, shipwrecks, and a great variety of fish and turtles.

In the early 1980s, Arthur C. Clarke played a key role in persuading the government to declare Hikkaduwa a marine sanctuary.