The Hill Country exists in a cool, perpetual spring, far from the often exhausting heat and heavy air of the coastal regions or the hot, dry air of the central and northern plains.
Everything is lush and green here, and much of the region is carpeted in the glowing green of tea plantations, with montane forest hugging the higher slopes.
Although Sinhalese culture originated in the north of Sri Lanka, power shifted southwest to Kotte (near Colombo) and the Hill Country following the decline of the Polonnaruwa dynasties in the early 13th century.

After the coastal regions fell to the Portuguese in the 17th century, the kingdom of Kandy resisted European takeover for more than 300 years, and Kandy remains the Sinhalese cultural and spiritual center.