Ratnapura Gem Museum and Mines

Ratnapura translates directly as 'City of Gems' in Sinhala, and the town lives up to its name: Sri Lanka is the world's third largest producer of gemstones, and the Ratnapura district has supplied sapphires, rubies, cat's eyes, alexandrite, and spinel to monarchs and museums for over 2,000 years. The Gem Bureau Museum in Ratnapura displays certified specimens across the full range of Sri Lankan gemstones alongside historical exhibits on the ancient gem trade. Several operators run tours of working open-pit mines in the surrounding valleys, where traditional hand-operated water pumps drain pits 4-8 metres deep while workers sieve river gravel by hand in wooden tubs, a technique unchanged for centuries. The world-famous Blue Belle sapphire (now in the British Crown Jewels) and the Star of India sapphire were both sourced from this region.