Place · city

Jaffna

Jaffna is the main city of northern Sri Lanka, on the Jaffna peninsula, and the cultural centre of the Sri Lankan Tamils. From the 13th century it was the seat of the Jaffna kingdom, and after 1619 a Portuguese and then Dutch stronghold, with a large Dutch fort. It was heavily affected by the Sri Lankan civil war between 1983 and 2009.

Jaffna
Image: Anton 17 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 profile

Later Pandyan EmpireMilitary, Impact

Mentioned in 5 state histories

Jaffna KingdomVanni chieftainciesKingdom of GampolaPortuguese CeylonDutch Ceylon

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Jaffna. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jaffna
MLA
“Jaffna.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jaffna. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Jaffna.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jaffna.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Jaffna’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/jaffna (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻