Place · highland town · Sri Lanka
Ella
/ellə/
Also known as Ella Town, Ella Sri Lanka, Ravana Ella
A small town at 1,041 m in Sri Lanka's Uva Province, set on the escarpment where the central highlands drop toward the southeastern plains. Ella functions as the base for the eastern cluster of Ramayana sites — Ravana's Cave, Ravana Falls, and traditional accounts of Ravana's palace — and today draws heavy backpacker traffic alongside pilgrims.
- Periods
- British Colonial Age, Republic and Living Practice
- Function
- Landscape & environmental change
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 6.867, 81.046
Worth knowing
The name Ella simply means "waterfall" in Sinhala. The town is best known internationally for the Nine Arches Bridge, a 1921 colonial railway viaduct, and for its position on the scenic Kandy–Badulla railway line. Its Ramayana associations are older but were consolidated into a formal tourism circuit only in the 2000s.
Ella is not named in the Ramayana; the connection is through the cluster of Ravana-associated sites in its vicinity.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Ella”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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