Country Listing

Sri Lanka Table of Contents

Sri Lanka

TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS

Railroads: Government owned; about 1,944 kilometers of track; network extends radially from Colombo to northern, eastern, and southern coastal cities; service to northern and eastern areas erratic because of domestic unrest.

Roads: Total approximately 75,000 kilometers; paved (bituminous) about 25,500 kilometers; 478,000 registered vehicles in mid-1980s.

Waterways: About 430 kilometers of rivers and canals navigable by shallow draft vessels.

Ports: Deep water ports at Colombo, Trincomalee, and Galle, latter two underutilized; government shipping corporation possessed eight freighters and two tankers in late 1980s.

Airfields: Fourteen, of which twelve usable in late 1980s, eleven having permanent surface runways, one (Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayaka) with runway more than 2,500 meters.

Telecommunications: International service provided by satellite earth station and submarine cable; international telephone, telex, and direct dialing in operation; about 106,500 telephones nationwide; about 29 radio stations, 24 of which are AM, at least 5 are FM) in operation, with more than 2 million registered receivers in use; 2 television networks broadcast over 4 channels; 350,000 television sets nationwide.

Data as of October 1988