The Ceylon Blue Book, 1900

This is an official statistical compilation on Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for the year 1900, compiled in the Colonial Secretary's Office and printed by the Government Printer in 1901. The document contains comprehensive tabular data tracking the colony's progress from 1823 through 1900. The contents include: population statistics; births, marriages, and deaths; education enrollment; public debt and revenue; military expenditure; civil service establishments and pensions; ecclesiastical and meteorological records; currency and banking data; detailed import/export figures; shipping tonnage; agricultural cultivation statistics; prison and criminal records; hospital returns; and railways/roads/canals infrastructure. The statistical view presents figures across seventy-seven years, documenting population growth from approximately 751,000 in 1823 to 2,768,984 by 1900, alongside corresponding data on marriages, deaths, land sales, cultivation acreage, revenue collected, and total shipping tonnage entered and cleared. Monetary conversions between rupees and pounds sterling are explained in accompanying notes addressing valuation changes across the period.