Jaffna (Nallur Kingdom)

The Jaffna peninsula capital of the medieval Tamil Aryacakravarti kingdom (c. 1215–1619), independent of the Sinhalese polities of the island's south for four centuries. The Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil — the Murugan temple that is the Tamil Sri Lankan community's principal shrine — stands at the old royal centre. Portuguese conquest in 1619 ended the kingdom; the town was rebuilt as Portuguese and then Dutch Jaffna, and remained Sri Lanka's second city until the 1983–2009 civil war devastated it. The Jaffna Public Library's reconstruction after its 1981 burning is one of the war's symbolic post-conflict acts.