TRINCOMALEE

ancient Gokanna town and port, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), on the island's northeastern coast. It is situated on a peninsula in Trincomalee Bay (formerly known as Koddiyar [meaning fort by the river] Bay), one of the world's finest natural harbours. Trincomalee was in early times a major settlement of Indo-Aryan immigrants, who built at the extremity of the peninsula the Temple of a Thousand Columns. The first Europeans to occupy the town were the Portuguese in the 17th century; they razed the temple, using its stone to construct a fort. The port's harbour changed hands repeatedly among the Dutch, French, and British until the British gained lasting possession of it in 1795. Trincomalee's importance as a major British base was heightened after the fall of Singapore in World War II; in 1942 the town was bombed by the Japanese. The British continued to hold the harbour after Sri Lanka's independence, relinquishing it only in 1957. The port of Trincomalee is no longer important commercially, though in the 1960s congestion and labour problems at Colombo, Sri Lanka's commercial capital and chief port, caused some trade to be routed through it. The town is a rail terminus and has good road connections with the rest of Sri Lanka. Pop. (1986 est.) 52,000.