Districts of Sri Lanka
| District දිස්ත්රික්ක மாவட்டம் |
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| Category | Second level administrative division |
| Location | Sri Lanka |
| Number | 25 (as of February 1984) |
| Populations | 92,238–2,324,349 |
| Areas | 699–7,179 km² |
| Government | District secretariat |
| Subdivisions | DS Division |
In Sri Lanka, districts (Sinhalese: දිස්ත්රික්ක Distrikka, Tamil: மாவட்டம்) are the second-level administrative divisions, and are included in a province. There are 25 districts organized into 9 provinces. Each district is administered under a District Secretary, who is appointed by the central government. The main tasks of the District Secretariat involve coordinating communications and activities of the central government and Divisional Secretariats. The District Secretariat is also responsible for implementing and monitoring development projects at the district level and assisting lower-level subdivisions in their activities, as well as revenue collection and coordination of elections in the district. A district is divided into a number of Divisional Secretary's Divisions (commonly known as DS divisions), which are in turn subdivided into 14,022 Grama Niladhari Divisions. There are 231 DS divisions in the country.
The country was first divided into several administrative units during the Anuradhapura Kingdom. The kingdom was divided into three provinces; Rajarata, Ruhuna and Malaya Rata. These were further subdivided into smaller units called rata. Over time, the number of provinces increased, but the second-level administrative division continued to be the rata. However, with the country eventually being divided into more than one kingdom and with foreign colonial missions landing and taking parts of the country under their control, this structure began to change. The territory of the Kotte Kingdom was organized into four disavas, which were further subdivided into forty korales. The korales had their own civil and military officials with a small militia. The Jaffna kingdom appears to have had a similar administrative structure to this with four provinces.
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