Sri Lanka
Central Highlands
The Central Highlands of Sri Lanka covers the remaining part of its montane rainforests, the habitat of high numbers of threatened flora and fauna species.
The mountainous region covered with grass plains comprises three protected areas: Peak Wilderness Sanctuary, Horton Plains National Park and Knuckles Range. One of the most remarkable surviving fauna species is the endemic Sri Lankan leopard.
Community Perspective: The area’s prime attractions seem to be cultural ones such as the Pilgrimage Path to Adam’s Peak and the surrounding tea plantations, but this is a natural site. You may expect waterfalls and viewpoints.
Site Info
Official Information
- Full Name
- Central Highlands of Sri Lanka (ID: 1203)
- Country
- Sri Lanka
- Status
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Inscribed 2010
Site history
History of Central Highlands
- 2009: Incomplete - not examined
- 2010: Deferred
- For Cultural Criteria
- 2010: Revision
- Includes former TWHS Peak Wilderness Wildlife Sanctuary (2002)
- 2010: Advisory Body overruled
- IUCN had advised Referral:"issues related to the integrity and management of the nominated property"
- 2010: Inscribed
- Inscribed
- WHS Type
- Natural
- Criteria
- ix
- x
Links
- UNESCO
- whc.unesco.org
All Links
UNESCO.org
- whc.unesco.org — whc.unesco.org/
Related Resources
- srilanka.travel — Central Highlands
- lanka.com — Horton Plains travel info
News Article
- July 31, 2010 telegraph.co.uk — Horton Plains Slender Loris pictured for first time
Community Information
- Community Category
- Natural landscape: Forest
- Natural landscape: Karst landscapes and caves
Travel Information
One million visitors or more
Recent Connections
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Recommended for combination by AB
With Sinharaja - "IUCN recommends that … -
Neolithic age
"So far as the archaeological evidence … -
Centres of Plant Diversity
IS12 Peak Wilderness and Horton Plains …
Connections of Central Highlands
- Individual People
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Ibn Battuta
"There are two tracks on the mountain leading to the Foot, one called the Baba track and the other the Mama track, meaning Adam and Eve (peace be upon them)... The blessed footprint, the Foot of our father Adam (God bless him and give him peace) is on a lofty black rock in a wide plateau"
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- Trivia
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More than 500 steps to climb
There are said to be 5200 steps to climb up Adams' Peak within the Central Highlands -
One million visitors or more
Adam's Peak: 2 million -
Built or owned by Japanese
the big Japanese Peace Pagoda at the foot of Adam's Peak, Central Highlands of Sri Lanka -
Viewable from another WHS
From Kandy's Asgiriya monastery (key part of the inscription), Knuckles range (Central Highlands WHS) can be seen from afar. -
Built or owned by British
At Horton Plains "the little cottage Farr Inn dating back to the colonial era has been transformed into an Information Centre and Museum but its colonial architecture has been preserved intact and painted in its original green colour to blend with the natural surroundings... Farr Inn was the hunting lodge of englishmen who hunted sambur, elk, deer and leopard in the whistling patanas for sport.
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- History
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Neolithic age
"So far as the archaeological evidence from Horton Plains is concerned, the significance relates to its global context, the origin of agriculture, which marks the dawn of the Neolithic Revolution, dating back to 14,000–10,000 years BP" (AB ev)
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- Ecology
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Rainforests
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Endemic Bird Species
Sri Lanka EBA, Peak Wilderness IBA, Knuckles IBA, Horton Plains IBA: various speciesSee www.birdlife.org
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Elephants
Asian Elephant (Sri Lankan Elephant): "a small remnant population in the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary" (wiki) -
Strepsirrhini
slow loris
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- World Heritage Process
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Recommended for combination by AB
With Sinharaja - "IUCN recommends that the possibility of a linked serial extension of SFR should be considered by both the State Party and the World Heritage Committee, in view of both the potential to strengthen integrity, and also gain the maximum benefits to conservation" (AB ev) -
Natural sites rejected for cultural criteria
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Extended from original TWHS
Originally only Peak Wilderness Wildlife Sanctuary.
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- Religion and Belief
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Theravada Buddhism
Adam's Peak or Sri Pada is a pilgrimage site of Theravada Buddhism for Sri Lankan -
Islamic pilgrimage sites
Adam's Peak -
Christian Pilgrimage Sites
Adam's Peak -
Sacred Mountains
Adam's Peak -
Pilgrimage route
Adam's Peak
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- Human Activity
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Petrosomatoglyphs
Footprint at Adam's Peak (of Buddha, Adam, Shiva or Saint Thomas).See en.wikipedia.org
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- WHS on Other Lists
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Alliance for Zero Extinction
Various in Horton Plains and Agra-Bopats, the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary and Knuckles Range -
Biodiversity hotspot
Sri Lanka / Western Ghats -
Centres of Plant Diversity
IS12 Peak Wilderness and Horton Plains - "The montane forests in the three serial components contain the only habitats of many threatened plant and animal species and are therefore of prime importance for their in-situ conservation. The property features exceptionally high numbers of threatened species, extraordinary levels of endemism, and high levels of species richness in a number of taxonomic groups."
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- Timeline
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Miocene
Ecological separation from India in the late Miocene.See www.oneearth.org
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News
- telegraph.co.uk 07/31/2010
- Horton Plains Slender Loris pictur…
Recent Visitors
Visitors of Central Highlands
- Afshin Iranpour
- Alessandro Votta
- Alexander Barabanov
- Alexander Lehmann
- AlexSchedel
- Alfons and Riki Verstraeten
- Ali Zingstra
- Allison Vies
- A. Mehmet Haksever
- arnaugir
- Artur Anuszewski
- Aspasia
- Atila Ege
- Bamse
- BaziFettehenne
- Bernard Joseph Esposo Guerrero
- Bin
- c82wc1
- Carlo Medina
- Carlo Sarion
- Chen Taotao
- Chris Law
- Christravelblog
- ClaireWhiteley
- Corinne Vail
- disnsam
- Djpatten
- Dutchbirder
- Dutchnick
- Els Slots
- Erfe91
- Erik Jelinek
- Errol Neo
- Eva Kisgyorgy
- Frederik Dawson
- Garrett
- Gary Arndt
- Geert Luiken
- George Evangelou
- George Gdanski
- ge zhang
- Ghostbear
- Gillian Taylor
- GithaK
- Glenn Nightingale
- GZ
- Hammeel
- Hanming
- Harald T.
- hazcraig16
- Hdwilsonau
- henryjiao18
- inomusay
- Ivan Rucek
- Jacob Otten
- Jana and Matt
- janem
- Jarek Pokrzywnicki
- Javier
- Jeanne OGrady
- Jeffrey Chai Ran
- Jezza
- JobStopar
- Joel on the Road
- JoeriNortier
- john booth
- Jonoprout
- Joshuakirbens
- Joyce van Soest
- Julie July
- Juropa
- jxrocky
- Kbecq
- Kjlauer
- Knut
- Koen Vliegenthart
- Kristin
- Kurt Lauer
- La Concy
- Leontine Helleman
- Liamps91
- lichia
- liverpool1023
- Loic Pedras
- Longdutch
- Lucio Gorla
- Luis Filipe Gaspar
- Lukasz Palczewski
- Marlies van Wolfswinkel
- Martina Rúčková
- Michael anak Kenyalang
- Michael Ayers
- Michael Novins
- michaelsballard
- Michael Turtle
- Michal Marciniak
- Mikan22
- Mikita M
- Mikko
- Miloš Tašković
- MMM
- Monica66
- Morodhi
- Mtlmr
- Naim Y
- nan
- NataliaS
- Nihal Ege
- NonDuality
- nongbulinqing
- PabloNorte
- padisenvacance
- palka25
- Pang Liang Fong
- Patrik
- Paul Schofield
- Peter Lööv
- Philipp Peterer
- phillipmeng
- Piotr Wasil
- Priyaranjan Mohapatra
- Randi Thomsen
- Remski
- Reza
- Rickard Alfredsson
- Rick Ohm
- Riomussafer
- Rob Wilson
- Rodinia
- Roman Bruehwiler
- Roman Koeln
- Rudegirl
- Sascha Grabow
- Sazanami
- Sergio Arjona
- Shandos Cleaver
- Shijie ZHU
- Shombob
- Solivagant
- Stanislaw Warwas
- Stephen S. Kamin
- Sturuss
- Sutul
- Svein Elias
- Szucs Tamas
- Tarquinio_Superbo
- Tevity
- Thomas Buechler
- Thomas van der Walt
- Timothy C Easton
- Tinamu
- tony0001
- Tony H.
- triath
- Twobaconsandaboston
- Vanessa Buechler
- vhorne
- Vlad Lesnikov
- voyager
- Waxwing
- Westwards
- Wojciech Fedoruk
- Wo_ko
- Wolfgang Sander
- YAO WEI
- Yuri Samozvanov
- YY
- Zach
- Zoë Sheng
- Zos M
- Zsuzsanna Forray
Community Reviews
Show full reviews
As an Australian, I'm completely fine with all manner of poisonous insects, bugs, spiders, and other creepy crawlies. They just don't bother me that much. Leeches, however - they bother me. A lot. So although we were quite keen on doing some hiking around the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, when we learned that all of the national parks were infested with leeches, our enthusiasm waned somewhat.
But, we pressed forward with our plans and came up with probably the cheapest and easiest way to access the World Heritage site. We did a self-guided day trip to Knuckles Range, using entirely public transport from Kandy. To do this: catch bus #22 to Mahiyanganaya from the central bus station. Hop off at Hunnasgiriya, about 90 minutes into the journey (tickets cost us 80 rupees each in Jan '19, or about $0.45 USD). From here, grab a tuk-tuk up the 7km mountain road to Deenstone Conservation Centre - we negotiated 500 rupees each way, and tipped him for waiting around. Entrance to the Knuckles Range here cost us 575 rupees + 15% VAT.
From here, you can do a gentle one-hour hike to a couple of viewpoints called Mini Worlds End 1 and Mini Worlds End 2. I don't think they compare to the proper Worlds End views at Horton Plains, but it was still quite nice and we enjoyed the views across rugged mountains, tea plantations, rice paddies and the like. The path is well-defined and after covering ourselves …
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I focused my visit on the Horton Plains National Park and did the early morning trek to 'The World's End'. You need to go really early because the whole view gets clouded over by about 9am each day.
The World’s End is about halfway along a nine kilometre circular route through the park. I reach it in time, just before the mist takes over the sky. High on a cliff, I look down, more than 1,200 metres to the bottom and no fence between me and air. A few clouds hang beneath me but they add to the majesty of this view, where mountains become highlands and then roll into fields that come to an abrupt end at the coast. The ocean is 80 kilometres away but I can see it on the horizon.
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I was part of a field course which we conducted in Sri Lanka. During our course we visited in Meemure village which is located in Knuckles Range inside the World Heritage area. According to our guide this area gets much less tourists than Horton Plains and Peak Wilderness. Meemure village was quite easily reachable from Kandy where we left at 6am. During the ride the views of the Knuckles Range area were amazing and especially sunrise over the valleys. The drive from the main road to the village along the mountain roads took 2 hours. Meemure village is very small and it seems to live from rice cultivation as the village was surrounded by very beautiful rice terraces. There are no tourism facilities and we had our lunch at local family's home. During our day there we hiked 2 short hikes to see waterfalls which were absolutely beautiful and we were also able to swim there. But my favourite was absolutely the views around the village. The crown is absolutely the Lakegala Mountain which rises over the rice fields. According to a local legend the mountain is believed to be the place where king Ravana jumped on his historical aeroplane Dhadu Monara. We didn't encounter much fauna, only some snakes, fish, butterflies and lots of birds. Our guide said elephants also live in the area and there were some platforms in trees so that the people working on the fields can escape there if angry elephant appears. I recommed visit …
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The central highlands of Sri Lanka, in my opinion, one of the most prettiest places in Asia, when we look at the map of this country, the magnificent lush green areas in the middle of the tear drop shaped island are really attractive and full of many places to discover from the famous multi-religious holy site of Adam’s Peak (Sri Pada) to the tea plantations of world famous Ceylon tea.
As a usual tourist, I started my trip to central highlands from the holy city of Kandy, another WHS and home of the sacred tooth relic, which actually located under the shadow of Knuckles Range, a part of this WHS. The road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya was just breathtaking with beautiful mountain landscape, lakes, and countless tea plantations; sometimes I still reminded the taste of chocolate cake and a cup of silver tip white tea I had while watching the waterfall, a perfect holiday. At night from the colonial villa hotel in the middle of tea plantations, I saw Sri Pada flooding with lights for pilgrims while hearing the Buddhist chanting from nearby temple, a real spiritual inspiration.
As you may noticed the prime attractions of the highlands were not natural heritage, but the cultural ones, when WHC decided to inscribe this place as a WHS on natural merit made me have to look back and from my experience, I found that the highlands were beautiful tropical mountain jungles but nothing significant enough to be WHS, actually if you …
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We visited 2 of the 3 elements of this site during a trip to Sri Lanka in 2005.
Horton Plains NP is particularly noted for its bird life including a number of Sri Lankan endemics and also harbours rare mammals. As such it appears on the itinerary of all Sri Lankan birding and wildlife tours. It reaches 2300m and consists of a mixture of forest and open grassland.
It can’t have been entirely coincidental that, just a few days before its consideration at Brasilia, a piece of news was released to the world’s newspapers to the effect that the Horton Plains Slender Loris had been photographed for the first ever time!! This is one of the World’s top 5 most endangered primates with possibly less than 100 remaining – a nicely timed piece of “news”!
Another piece of trivia which might be of interest is its very “English” title which relates to the British Governor of Ceylon 1831-7 - a Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton. He in turn had adopted the second part of his name under the terms of his father-in-law’s will which required that this action be taken in order that he could inherit the country estate!
Apart from the wildlife the main other “sights” within the Park are an 870m cliff known as “World’s End” and an attractive but not particularly noteworthy waterfall named “Baker’s Falls” after the British African explorer.
The second element we visited was the “Peak Wilderness Sanctuary” (which is adjacent to Horton Plains NP –the …
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I have visited the Peak wilderness, Horton Plains alias Maha Eliya and Knuckles range many a time. Horton Plains or Maha Eliya is now being a National Park, much attention is paid to protect it. But the other areas are open for anyone who want to enter is open for threat. Knuckles and Peak Wilderness areas have more diversity in Fauna as well as flora, and has to be protected at any cost.
My opinion is that these areas must be named as World Heritage Sites and may be special laws and methods of protection must be adopted. Especially in Knuckles Range, there are many remote villages that special attention must be put.
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During a standard 3-week tour of Sri Lanka you're likely to visit almost all of the country's WHS: it's just not that big. This new addition to the WH list is no exception: Adam's Peak for example (at the heart of the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary) is quite a landmark.
In 1996 we travelled to the center of Sri Lanka by train. There are many tea plantations in this area. As you go uphill, it gets colder and wetter. As the temperature only reached 15 degrees Celsius, we felt like we were in England or Holland. The locals were really cold too and wore thick jackets, fleece sweaters and hats.
From Nuwara Eliya we did a hiking tour at the Horton Plains. We were transported to the park entrance in about an hour and then walked for about 4 hours. The things to see are some steep cliffs (Little World's End and Big World's End) and waterfalls.
My trip diary notes do not mention anything very remarkable about this hike, and I must admit that even less is left in my memory.
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