Kottawa

Kottawa is a junction town in the Colombo District, about 21 km from central Colombo under the Maharagama Urban Council. It sits at a five-way junction where the A4 High Level Road meets roads to Maharagama, Homagama, Piliyandala, Malabe and Borella, and it forms the commercial centre of the wider Pannipitiya area.

Kottawa is best known as an expressway and transport junction. The Southern Expressway (E01) begins here, with its Kottawa–Galle section opened on 27 November 2011, and the Outer Circular Expressway (E02) also reaches the town from the north. Kottawa is also home to several Buddhist temples, including Digana Purana Rajamaha Viharaya, and its five-way junction has made it the main banking and shopping centre for the surrounding Pannipitiya area.

The Kottawa-Makumbura Multimodal Transport Centre, opened on 31 March 2019, links the Kelani Valley railway line's Malapalla terminus with expressway buses and A4 highway services at the interchange. Kottawa's own railway station, on the same Kelani Valley line, is about 21.3 km from Colombo Fort by rail and is not electrified, so most commuters use the expressway buses or private transport rather than rail. High Level Road between Kottawa and Pannipitiya carries heavy congestion at peak times, a long-standing weak point for the area.

Kottawa Dharmapala Maha Vidyalaya, founded in 1970, and Ananda Vidyalaya are the area's established schools. Supermarkets including Cargills, Keells and Arpico outlets, plus a weekly Tuesday street market, cover everyday shopping around the junction, and Pannipitiya Nursing Home and Apeksha Hospital, the National Cancer Institute in nearby Maharagama, are the closest hospitals. A cluster of cafes and small restaurants sits around the main junction itself.

Two Urban Development Authority middle-income housing schemes near Kottawa, with around 300 units combined, were completed in the early 2020s, an early sign of the area's shift from a pure road-and-rail junction into a denser residential node. New residential developments in Kottawa are listed further down this page.

Being the starting point of two expressways and a rail line, Kottawa tends to suit commuters travelling south towards Galle and Matara or east via the Outer Circular Expressway, along with buyers who want to be near the multimodal park-and-ride facilities rather than living in central Colombo itself.