Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean situated to the south-east of the southern point of India. It was colonised by an Aryan race that came from North India in the 6th century B.C. It has a recorded history of twenty-two centuries. Until the beginning of the 15th century it had political contacts mainly with the sub-continent of India. In 1518, the Portuguese captured a part of the maritime coastal area of Sri Lanka and started their own system of administration. The Dutch ousted the Portuguese from Galle in 1640 and established the administration of the Dutch East India Company along the same coastal region by 1656. They were active until they ceded to the British in 1796. The British administered the same coastal area from 1796 to 1815. The Kandyan kingdom was subsequently annexed in 1815 and the British gained complete control over the entire island. Sri Lanka regained independence from the British in 1948 and in May, 1972 it became a Republic within the British Commonwealth. Since February, 1978 it has been an Independent Republic with its first executive President.