A significant discrepancy has emerged between a population figure published by Sri Lanka’s Central Bank for the Northern Province and the latest official census data issued by the Department of Census and Statistics.
M.A. Sumanthiran, general secretary of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, alleged in a post on X that the Central Bank’s figure conflicts substantially with official population figures. The bank’s “Country Profile – 2025”, under a table titled “Population and Land Area by Provinces 2025”, lists the Northern Province population as 557,000.
By contrast, the final results of Sri Lanka’s 2024 Census of Population and Housing, issued by the Department of Census and Statistics, put the Northern Province’s population at 1,150,148, equivalent to 5.3 per cent of the country’s total population.
The census figures give a population of 594,751 for Jaffna district, 123,756 for Mannar, 172,312 for Vavuniya, 122,619 for Mullaitivu and 136,710 for Kilinochchi. Together, the five districts account for more than 1.15 million people.
If the Central Bank’s 557,000 figure is intended to represent the entire Northern Province population, the difference from the official census figure is 593,148. The census population is therefore more than twice the figure shown in the Central Bank table.
The Central Bank table also records the Northern Province’s land area as 8,290 square kilometres and its population density as 67 people per square kilometre. A footnote marked “(b)” states that although the Survey Department has updated Sri Lanka’s total land area to 62,240 square kilometres, provincial-level details were not yet available, meaning the table’s provincial figures were based on the previous national land-area figure of 65,610 square kilometres.
The source argues that this footnote explains the treatment of land-area figures but does not provide an explanation for the population figure of 557,000.
The discrepancy has prompted questions over how the Central Bank figure was produced, including which source was used, the year to which the figure relates and what methodology was applied. It is also unclear from the source whether the figure could have resulted from an error in compiling or labelling the table.
Sumanthiran questioned the implications of such a discrepancy, asking what it would mean if a population figure of this magnitude had been incorrectly reported or deliberately distorted, and what level of confidence could then be placed in other economic data issued by the Central Bank.
The source does not establish whether the 557,000 figure resulted from a printing error, a data-entry mistake, a different statistical methodology or another explanation. It instead calls for the Central Bank to clarify the basis of the figure.
The immediate issue, according to the source, is therefore whether 557,000 was intended as the Northern Province’s total population and, if so, why it differs so substantially from the 1,150,148 recorded in the 2024 official census. If it is not the province’s total population, the Central Bank would need to specify which population category the figure represents.
