Kalpitiya

Historical records show that during the Dutch period of the island's colonial history, the northern end of the peninsula was used as a strategic base for a military garrison and naval outpost to monopolise trade supplies to the mainland.

The best beach season is from December to April, which is also the best time for any marine activities like scuba diving, snorkelling or dolphin watching because the ocean is calm and waves are smallest.

On top of that there are several international schools like IKRA which offer elementary and secondary education in English to local or foreign children at very reasonable cost.

It has a marine sanctuary with a diversity of habitats ranging from bar reefs, flat coastal plains, saltpans, mangroves swamps, salt marshes and vast sand dune beaches.

The coastal waters are also home to spinner, bottlenose and Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, whales, sea turtles, and the elusive dugong.

[10] The beach is a starting point for off-shore whale and dolphin watching in Kalpitiya and offers various water related activities which are available from November till the end of April.

The dive sites offer both rocky and sandy bottoms which are home to many kinds of sting rays, moray eels, soft and hard coral, napoleon wrasse, shrimps, nudibranch, barracuda, and fish schools.

Again in 2009, in the post-war period, investors in the tourism industry scrambled to ‘acquire’ potential business sites to capitalise on the reconstruction phase.

[15] Land seizures have also occurred by scrupulously removing the names of the residents from government documents such as the voters’ registry, abusing legal ownership regulations and stipulations of the government and ignoring provisions in the customary law, using coercive means upon the residents who are unable to produce titles to the land they have been occupying and by taking over Beach Seine points and anchorage points by force.

Dutch Reformed Church
Dutch Reformed Church
Main street
Production of salt through evaporisation of sea water near Kalpitiya