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Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna
district located on a peninsula of the same name. With a population of 88,138, Jaffna is Sri Lanka's 12th largest city.
Jaffna is approximately six miles (9.7 kilometres) from Kandarodai which served as an emporium in the Jaffna peninsula
from classical antiquity. Jaffna's suburb Nallur served as the capital of the four-century-long medieval Jaffna kingdom. Prior
to the Sri Lankan civil war, it was Sri Lanka's second most populated city after the commercial capital Colombo. The 1980s
insurgent uprising led to extensive damage, expulsion of part of the population, and military occupation. Since the end of civil
war in 2009, refugees and internally displaced people have started to return to their homes and government and private
sector reconstruction has begun.
Historically, Jaffna has been a contested city. It was made into
a colonial port town during the Portuguese occupation of the Jaffna peninsula in 1619 who lost it to the Dutch, only to lose
it to the British in 1796. And during the post-Independence civil war the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
occupied Jaffna in 1986. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) briefly occupied the city in 1987. The LTTE again occupied the
city from 1989 until 1995, when the Sri Lankan military regained control.
Ref: Wikipedia
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