Victoria Reservoir and Knuckles Range

The Victoria Reservoir, about 20 km east of Kandy, is Sri Lanka's largest reservoir, created by damming the Mahaweli River in the 1980s. The lake is set among the foothills of the Knuckles Range (Dumbara Muthuagala) — a UNESCO World Heritage area of cloud forest, grasslands, and peaks up to 1,900 metres. The reservoir itself is scenic and offers boat trips; the Knuckles Range has well-marked trekking routes ranging from half-day walks to multi-day wilderness expeditions.

From Kandy, the Knuckles Range is reached via Teldeniya to the east. Local guides are available and recommended for the more remote trails. The area receives significant rainfall and can be dramatic in mist and cloud even when Kandy is sunny.

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A story
The Victoria Dam, completed in 1985 with British and World Bank funding, displaced around 30,000 people from their villages in the Mahaweli valley. The communities had little warning and less compensation — resettlement villages were established on inferior land, and many families lost ancestral farmland submerged under the rising waters. The dam generates a third of Sri Lanka's electricity and provides irrigation for large parts of the dry zone. The trade-off between development and displacement remains politically unresolved.

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