[6] The district was colonised in 1936 by residents from Jaffna Peninsula as part of a scheme that sought to ease overpopulation and unemployment.

[7] At the time that Ceylon gained independence, Jaffna was one of the three districts located in the Northern Province.

Kilinochchi District was under the control of rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for many years during the civil war.

The population of the district, like the rest of the north and east of Sri Lanka, has been heavily affected by the civil war.

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

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