Anuradhapura

Sri Lanka’s oldest capital was the centre of a hydraulic civilisation for over a thousand years and produced some of the most ambitious sacred architecture in the ancient world – including the Ruwanwelisaya stupa, which rises 90 metres on solid brick. The Sri Maha Bodhi, a fig tree grown from a cutting of the original Bodhi tree in 288 BCE, is the oldest documented living human-planted tree on earth and still at the centre of active daily pilgrimage.