Ceylon

A detailed overview of Ceylon published about a decade after independence.

This magnificent, large-scale four-sheet wall map offers a breathtakingly detailed visual inventory of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) during a pivotal moment of post-independence modernizing ambition. Published around 1960 under the direction of Vytialingam Rasaretnam, the second Ceylonese Surveyor General following the departure of British colonial administrators, the map reflects both a continuation of Victorian administrative rigor and the emerging infrastructure goals of a young nation.

Particular attention is given to communications and transportation. Major roads are distinguished from lesser roads and cart tracks, while an extensive network of footpaths and railways records the island’s transportation infrastructure in remarkable detail. Rivers, lakes, and reservoirs are prominently mapped alongside water tanks, marshes, irrigation channels, and other elements of Ceylon’s extensive hydraulic landscape. The map also identifies provincial and regional boundaries and an impressive array of government facilities, including rest houses, dispensaries, post offices, police stations, and government bungalows.

In many respects, the map represents a continuation of the highly detailed surveying and administrative cartographic tradition established under British rule. Yet its production under Rasaretnam is significant: Ceylon had achieved independence in 1948, and by the late 1950s the Survey Department was operating as a national institution while retaining many of the technical practices and geographic frameworks developed during the colonial period. Rasaretnam himself reported in 1958 that Ceylon possessed a sophisticated nationwide leveling network and was undertaking extensive aerial photography with assistance from Britain, Canada, and the United States.