Vavuniya

This town in northern Sri Lanka that sits at the cultural boundary between the country's Tamil and Sinhalese populations, Vavuniya has a compact centre with cafés and restaurants and serves as a practical base for travel deeper into the Northern Province — a Tamil-majority region with Hindu temples, ancient ruins, and beaches that are still recovering and rebuilding after years of civil war.

• Population60,176
• Nearest water from center1.1 km
• Nearest mountain from center5.2 km
• UNESCO within 50 km1