Sri Lanka vs. Taiwan
Sri Lanka and Taiwan are two countries with a few things in common.
First off, they are small Asian island nation countries located near extremely large
countries. Sri Lanka (approximately 21.89 million people, 61st in world) is located near India (approximately 1.429 billion people, 1st in world).
Taiwan (approximately 23.92 million people, 57th in world) is located near China (approximately 1.426 billion people, 2nd in world).
The population data above is based on United Nations Population Division estimates.
Below are maps of Sri Lanka/India and Taiwan/China:
Interestingly, Sri Lanka has approximately twice the land area as Taiwan even though its population size is smaller.
Next, there are 48 Asian countries and there is only one country between Sri Lanka and Taiwan alphabetically: Syria. (Before 1972, Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon.)
Finally, Buddhism is a major religion in both countries. Approximately 70% of Sri Lankans
are Buddhist. Buddhism is also the most popular religion in Taiwan.
While Buddhism is a popular religion in
Sri Lanka, it is not very popular in India. Buddhists make up a tiny 0.7% of India's population. Even though India's population is over sixty times as large as
Sri Lanka's population, there are more Buddhists in Sri Lanka than there are in India!
My parents were born and raised in Sri Lanka. I grew up in Cupertino, which has a
sizable Taiwanese-American population. While a significant percentage of current Cupertino residents are Taiwanese-American (I did some online research and could not
find an exact percentage), less than 0.05% of current Cupertino residents are Sri-Lankan American.