Kingdom of Kotte

The Kingdom of Kotte was a Sinhalese state named after its capital, Kotte, near modern Colombo in Sri Lanka. The fortress had been founded in the late fourteenth century by a minister of the Kingdom of Gampola, and in 1412 Parakramabahu VI made it his capital, moving there permanently in 1415 and rebuilding the city with a palace and a Temple of the Tooth. With support from Ming China he subdued the Vanni chieftaincies, and in 1450 he conquered the Jaffna kingdom, briefly uniting the whole island. His reign became a golden age of Sinhalese literature. After his death in 1467, regional powers grew stronger; the Kingdom of Kandy was founded in the highlands in 1469, and the capital was moved to Kelaniya from 1509 to 1528. The Portuguese reached Sri Lanka in 1505 and gradually extended their influence. During the Sinhalese-Portuguese War the kingdom fragmented, and in 1597 Dom Joao Dharmapala bequeathed it to the Portuguese crown, creating Portuguese Ceylon.