The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island nation located in the Indian Ocean, off the southeastern coast of India. Its administrative capital is Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, and its commercial capital is Colombo. The island, which the British called “Ceylon,” was occupied by British forces in 1796, during the Napoleonic Wars. The 1802 Treaty of Amiens gave the British East India Company control of the island’s strategically important coastal areas, and by 1815 the entire island was under British colonial rule. In the nineteenth century, the island was primarily used to produce first coffee and later tea. The country gained independence from Britain in 1948 and adopted its current name in 1972.