Ceylon was a crown colony of the United Kingdom that existed from 1815 to 1948, with Colombo serving as its capital. The island was transferred to British control by the exiled government of the United Provinces after France conquered the Netherlands in 1795 during the French Revolutionary Wars, and the British forced the Kingdom of Kandy to become a protectorate after years of fighting in the early 1810s. In 1815, Britain formally annexed Ceylon upon the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and clashes between the colonial authorities and the local Buddhists led to popular unrest in the late 1810s. From 1817 to 1948, the British ruled over the entire island, having crushed all resistance to their rule. In 1948, Ceylon became an independent nation under Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake, coming to be known as "Sri Lanka".
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