Kilinochchi is a city in the Kilinochchi District

Kilinochchi District

Kilinochchi district is one of the 25 administrative districts of Sri Lanka. The district is administered by a District Secretariat headed by a District Secretary appointed by the central government of Sri Lanka. The headquarters is located in Kilinochchi town...

, part of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

. Kilinochchi is situated at the A9 road some 100 km (62.1 mi) south-east of Jaffna

Jaffna

Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...

. It was the administrative center and de facto capital of the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) until 2 January 2009, when troops of the Sri Lankan Army

Sri Lankan Army

The Sri Lanka Army is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and is responsible for land-based military and humanitarian operations. Established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, it was renamed when Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972...

 recaptured the city.

Creation (1936)

The city of Kilinochchi was established in 1936 as part of a colonization project that sought to ease overpopulation and unemployment in Jaffna.

Sri Lankan Civil War

The LTTE first took hold of the town in 1990 when the Army withdrew its garrisons from Kilinochchi. Then the area was retaken by the Army during operations Sathjaya I, II, and III in September 1996. The town again fell into the LTTE's hand in September 1998 who held their administrative hub there until evacuating during the Battle of Kilinochchi on 2 January 2009.

Several institutions of the LTTE had been relocated from Kilinochchi to Tharmapuram

Tharmapuram

Tharmapuram, or Dharmapuram, is a town in Kilinochchi District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is about 13 km east to the town of Kilinochchi....

, a town about 13 km in the east, by early October, 2008.

Economy

Kilinochchi is one of the major agrarian cultivation

Tillage

Tillage is the agricultural preparation of the soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shovelling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, and raking...

 destinations in the island from the pre-historic times. Iranamadu (Ranamaduva) Tank, Kanakampikai Kulam (Pond), and Kilinochchi Kulam are the major irrigation

Irrigation

Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

 source for paddy

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

and various other cultivations.

External links

• kilinochchi.net
• Sri Lankan Civil War
• Muslims in the Civil War
• From Embargo to Repression
• Kilinochchi Photos