The Puttalam Lagoon is a large 327 square kilometre lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

 in the Puttalam District

Puttalam District

Puttalam is a district situated near to the west coast of Sri Lanka. It has an area of . Along with the Kurunegala District, it formulates the North Western Province of Sri Lanka. The district capital is Puttalam, which borders the Kala Oya and Modaragam Aru in the north, Anuradhapura District and...

, western Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

.

The lagoon is fed by two rivers, namely the Kala Oya and Mi Oya, discharging at 2.2 m3/s and 8.1 m3/s respectively. It is linked to Mundal Lagoon

Mundal Lagoon

Mundal Lagoon is a lagoon in Puttalam District, western Sri Lanka. The lagoon is sometimes referred to as Mundal Lake.The lagoon is linked to Puttalam Lagoon to the north by a channel. The lagoon's water is brackish....

 15 km (9.3 mi) to the south by a channel

Channel (geography)

In physical geography, a channel is the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean strait consisting of a bed and banks.A channel is also the natural or human-made deeper course through a reef, sand bar, bay, or any shallow body of water...

. The lagoon's water is brackish to saline

Saline water

Saline water is a general term for water that contains a significant concentration of dissolved salts . The concentration is usually expressed in parts per million of salt....

.

The lagoon is surrounded by a region containing coconut

Coconut

The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

s, open forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s, grassland

Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...

s and shrubland

Shrubland

Shrubland, scrubland, scrub or brush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity...

s. The land is used for prawn

Prawn

Prawns are decapod crustaceans of the sub-order Dendrobranchiata. There are 540 extant species, in seven families, and a fossil record extending back to the Devonian...

 fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

, salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 production, and rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 cultivation. The lagoon has extensive mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

s, seagrass

Seagrass

Seagrasses are flowering plants from one of four plant families , all in the order Alismatales , which grow in marine, fully saline environments.-Ecology:...

es and some salt marsh

Salt marsh

A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...

es, attracting a wide variety of anatidae

Anatidae

Anatidae is the biological family of birds that includes ducks, geese and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica and on most of the world's islands and island groups...

.

Islands

A moderate number islands scatter over the lagoon including:

List of islands in the lagoon from north to south

Island	Area	Location Geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on the Earth to be specified by a set of numbers. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represent vertical position, and two or three of the numbers represent horizontal position...
Ippantivu		08°19′45"N 79°48′16"E
Periya Arichchal		08°18′03"N 79°47′50"E
Salliyampiddi		08°17′03"N 79°47′33"E
Oddakarentivu		08°16′35"N 79°45′50"E
Sinna Erumativu		08°16′28"N 79°46′21"E
Erumativu		08°16′04"N 79°46′45"E
Pambativu		08°14′42"N 79°46′33"E
Kilitivu		08°14′27"N 79°46′52"E
Neduntivu		08°14′06"N 79°46′45"E
Mattutivu		08°13′01"N 79°46′59"E
Ambantattivu		08°12′42"N 79°45′58"E
Pullupiddi		08°11′20"N 79°46′40"E
Somativu		08°10′45"N 79°45′22"E
Maripututivu		08°10′33"N 79°44′59"E
Kakativu		08°10′26"N 79°45′22"E
Udayirputi		08°09′52"N 79°48′37"E