A Landscape Layered With History
Ancient irrigation works, a forgotten battlefield, and the modern story of a park built to shelter displaced wildlife.
- Nature Reserve
- Since 1938
- National Park
- Since 1984
- Ancient Builder
- Parakramabahu I
- Battle Era
- 161–137 BC
The Tanks of Parakramabahu I
Long before it was a national park, this land was farmed and engineered. King Parakramabahu I, who ruled Sri Lanka in the 12th century, oversaw an ambitious network of irrigation tanks and canals across the dry zone — several of which survive inside Wasgamuwa, still holding water centuries later. The ruined Chulangana chaitya, a stupa with a base measuring nearly 300 metres around, is one of the more striking remnants of this era.
A Battlefield of Kings
A plain inside the park known as Yudangana Pitiya is identified as the site of a battle between King Dutugemunu and King Elara, fought around 161–137 BC as part of the campaign that reunified ancient Sri Lanka. Today, jeep trails cross the same open ground where that history played out, largely unmarked and easy to miss without a guide.
A Refuge Born of the Mahaweli Project
The land was first set aside as a nature reserve in 1938, then reclassified as a strict nature reserve in the early 1970s. Its status changed again in 1984, when the Mahaweli Development Project — a nationwide scheme of dams and irrigation that flooded valleys across central Sri Lanka — displaced large numbers of wild animals from their original habitat. Wasgamuwa was declared a national park on 7 August that year specifically to give them somewhere to go, and the elephant herds that resettled here have remained ever since. Read more about the park's present-day wildlife and landscape.
Continue Exploring
See what this land looks like today, and the animals that now call it home.
Size, location, entry points and the rules of a park named for the sloth bear.
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Elephant herds up to 150 strong, sloth bears, leopards and the animals that call Wasgamuwa home.
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143 recorded species, 8 found only in Sri Lanka, from riverine raptors to migrant waders.
Read MoreDry-zone forest, riverine jungle and the Mahaweli River, Sri Lanka's longest, along its border.
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When the herds gather, when the migrants arrive, and how the seasons shape a safari here.
Read MoreFrequently Asked Questions
Who was King Parakramabahu I?
King Parakramabahu I (1153–1186 AD) was a Sri Lankan monarch famed for a vast programme of irrigation works — tanks, canals and reservoirs built to turn the dry zone into productive farmland. Several of these ancient structures still hold water inside Wasgamuwa today.
What is the Dutugemunu–Elara battlefield inside Wasgamuwa?
Yudangana Pitiya, a plain inside the park, is identified as a battleground from the conflict between King Dutugemunu and King Elara around 161–137 BC — part of the campaign that reunified ancient Sri Lanka under a single ruler.
When did Wasgamuwa become a national park?
The land was first protected as a nature reserve in 1938 and upgraded to a strict nature reserve in the early 1970s, before being declared a full national park on 7 August 1984 to shelter wildlife displaced by the Mahaweli Development Project.