Hokandara

Hokandara is a suburb in the Colombo District, about 18 km east of central Colombo, on the Hokandara–Talawatugoda and Malabe–Athurugiriya roads. It borders Thalawathugoda to the west, Pelawatte to the north-west, Malabe to the north, Athurugiriya to the east and Pannipitiya to the south, and falls within the Kaduwela Municipal Council's Hokandara North, Hokandara East and Hokandara South wards.

Hokandara was farmland until the 1990s, when it began developing into a middle- and upper-middle-class residential suburb, a shift that has continued since. The area's older history is thin in the record, but the 16th-century chronicle Rajavaliya records that King Rajasinghe I levied troops from Hokandara before the Battle of Mulleriyawa in 1561.

The Hokandara–Talawatugoda Road, the Malabe–Kottawa Road and the Athurugiriya Road (B240) meet in the area, and the Athurugiriya interchange of the Outer Circular Expressway is a short drive to the east. There is no railway station in Hokandara itself; Pannipitiya and Kottawa are the nearest, several kilometres away, so almost all local journeys are made by bus or private transport rather than rail.

Hokandara Vidyaraja Maha Vidyalaya is the area's own national school, with Agramathya College and Vidura College in neighbouring Thalawathugoda also serving local families. Hemas Hospital in Thalawathugoda and Sri Jayewardenepura General Hospital in Thalapathpitiya are the nearest hospitals. Everyday shopping is centred on the supermarkets and fast-food outlets at Hokandara Junction, and green space is limited within the suburb itself, with Thalangama Lake nearby and Diyasaru Park and Beddagana Wetland Park a short drive away in Thalawathugoda and Kotte.

Residential subdivision of former agricultural land has continued in Hokandara since the 1990s, without a large single infrastructure project sited in the suburb itself, in contrast to the government and IT developments under way in neighbouring Battaramulla and Malabe. New residential developments in Hokandara are listed further down this page.

Sitting between the government-office corridor around Battaramulla and Thalawathugoda and the education and IT cluster around Malabe, Hokandara tends to suit families and professionals who commute to either area but want a quieter residential setting with larger plots than its more built-up neighbours.