Dutch Ceylon

Dutch Governorate of Ceylon Nederlands-Ceylon
1640–1796
Flag of Dutch Ceylon Flag of Dutch Ceylon Coat of arms
Dutch territorial expansion in Ceylon 1690. Dutch territorial expansion in Ceylon 1690.
Status	Governorate
Capital	Galle Colombo
Common languages	Sinhala, Tamil, and Dutch
Governor
• 1640–1640	Willem Jacobszoon Coster
• 1794–1796	Johan van Angelbeek
Historical era	Imperialism
• Established	13 March 1640
• Disestablished	16 February 1796
Preceded by Succeeded by File:Flag Portugal (1640).svg Portuguese Ceylon File:Flag of Sitawaka Kingdom (1521 - 1594).png Kingdom of Sitawaka Kingdom of Kandy File:Flag of Ceylon.svg British Ceylon File:Flag of Ceylon (1875–1948).svg
Today part of	Sri Lanka

Dutch Ceylon existed from 1640 to 1796. It is called in Sinhala.

In the early 17th century, Sri Lanka (which was called Ceylon at the time), was divided between the Portuguese, and several local kingdoms. The kingdoms were fighting against each other very often. Although the Portuguese were not winning the war, their rule was rather burdensome to the people of the areas they controlled. At some point, the king of Kandy asked the Dutch for help. The Dutch East India Company ran the country. Even though they managed to control large areas near the coast, they did not control the mountain areas and the Kandxan kingdom in the center of the island. The Dutch interest in Ceylon was to have a stronghold against the Iberians (Spanish and Portuguese) at the time.