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Sri Lanka Road Signs and Their Meanings (Sinhala & English)

Filter 40 Sri Lankan road signs by the shape, the colour and the symbol you can actually see, or search by name in English or Sinhala. Each sign shows its official meaning, the rule it enforces and the spot fine for ignoring it. No signup, no ads, sources cited below.

By Induwara AshinsanaUpdated Oct 2, 2026
Identify a road sign40 signs
RDA Manual · Highway Code

Matches the English name, the Sinhala name and common synonyms. Up to 60 characters.

Quick filters

Showing 40 of 40 signs

What the shape and colour tell you

FamilyShape and colourWhat it means
Warningamber diamond with a black border and a black symbolSomething ahead needs care. A warning sign tells you what to expect; on its own it imposes no duty, so there is usually no fine attached to the sign itself.
Prohibitorywhite circle inside a red ringSomething is forbidden. The red ring carries the ban, and a red diagonal bar across the symbol reinforces it.
Mandatorysolid blue circle with a white symbolSomething is compulsory. Blue means an instruction you must follow, not a hazard, and not advice.
Informatoryblue rectangle with a white symbol or letterInformation or a facility, parking, a hospital, fuel, the direction traffic flows.
Expresswaygreen rectangle with white letteringExpressway direction and route signing. Green is used on expressways only, so a green sign tells you which road you are on before it tells you anything else.
Stopred octagon reading STOPCome to a complete halt at the stop line, then give way before moving off. The only octagonal sign in the Sri Lankan set.
Give waywhite downward-pointing triangle with a red borderYield to traffic on the major road. Unlike STOP you need not halt if the road is clear. The only downward-pointing triangle in the set.

induwara.lkSources cited:RDA Manual on Traffic Control Devices (shapes, colours, families); The Highway Code (meanings, Sinhala names); Motor Traffic Act Chapter 203 s.151 (the offence); Gazette Extraordinary No. 2271/13 of 12 April 2022 (the fines).

How it works

This is a lookup, not a calculation, but the lookup only works because the Sri Lankan sign set is built on a rule the scanned Highway Code PDFs explain badly: in the RDA Manual on Traffic Control Devices, the sign familydetermines the shape and the colour, with no exceptions. So a driver who remembers nothing but “red circle” has already narrowed 40 signs to 12, and a driver who remembers “blue circle” has narrowed them to 5.

The filter applies in a fixed order, family, then shape, then colour, then whether the sign carries a fine, then the text search. The geometry axes run first because they are the ones that decide whether the combination can exist at all. Ask for a blue octagon and the page does not return an empty grid: it tells you the only octagonal sign in the Sri Lankan set is the red STOP sign, which is a statement about the Manual rather than a failed search. The text search is case-insensitive and runs over the official English name, the Highway Code's Sinhala name, a plain-language description of the symbol, and a list of synonyms, so “speed breaker”, “road hump” and “වේග අවහිරය” all reach the same sign.

Nothing on this page restates a figure that lives somewhere else. The sign rows themselves are the same rows the driving licence written exam practice tool uses, read from one shared module. Every rupee figure is read at render time from the gazetted spot-fine schedule that backs the traffic-fine calculator, no amount is copied into this page, so amending the gazette moves both pages at once. Every km/h figure is read from the national speed-limit matrix the same way. That discipline exists because the alternative has already cost us: duplicated electricity tariffs on this site went 135 days stale, and duplicated fuel prices about three months, before each page was rewired to read one shared function.

The join from a sign to a penalty follows the statute, not a guess. Disobeying a regulatory sign, a prohibition, a mandatory instruction, STOP or give way, is an offence under section 151 of the Motor Traffic Act, Chapter 203, and is ticketed at Rs 3,000 unless the schedule carries a more specific line, as it does for parking at Rs 1,000. Warning and informatory signs impose no duty on their own, so they show no fine; the two exceptions are signs marking a place where a specific duty begins, the pedestrian crossing and the one-way street.

Cross-checked on this build

  • Every sign's shape and colour agrees with its family's prescribed geometry, and every glyph named in the table has a drawing.
  • Every regulatory sign resolves to a live offence in the gazetted schedule, and every speed-limit roundel shows a number the national matrix prescribes (40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 km/h).
  • The filter is implemented twice, once over a family index, once as a plain linear scan that shares no code with it, and the two agree on all 4,320 combinations of family, shape, colour, fine filter and sample query.
  • All 5 worked examples below reproduce exactly.

Worked examples

Each case below was worked through by hand against the 40 rows before the filter was written, and each is re-run against the live table on every deploy, so an example that stops being true fails loudly instead of sitting here wrong.

No filters at all — the empty state

40 of 40 signs

  1. Family "any", shape "any", colour "any", search box empty.
  2. No axis removes anything, so every row survives.
  3. Result: 40 of 40 signs. The page opens on the whole set rather than an empty grid.

A red-bordered circle with a P in it

1 of 40 signs

  1. Shape "circle" keeps the prohibitory and mandatory families. Those are the two circular families in the Manual.
  2. Colour "red" drops the mandatory family, because a mandatory circle is solid blue. Only prohibitory rows remain.
  3. Search "parking" matches one of them: "No parking".
  4. The informatory "Parking permitted" sign also contains the word, but it is a blue rectangle and was already dropped by the colour filter.
  5. Result: 1 of 40 → No parking, ticketed under offence no_parking, Motor Traffic Act s.151.

Searching in Sinhala — තහනම් (prohibited)

9 of 40 signs

  1. No shape or colour filter; the search runs over the English name, the Highway Code Sinhala name, the pictogram description and the synonym list.
  2. "තහනම්" is the word the Sinhala edition uses for a prohibition, so it matches every ban sign's Sinhala name.
  3. Result: 9 of 40, no entry, no left turn, no right turn, no U-turn, no overtaking, no parking, no horn, no motorcycles, no heavy vehicles.
  4. The three speed-limit roundels are prohibitory too, but their Sinhala name reads "උපරිම වේගය …" rather than "තහනම්", so they correctly stay out.

A combination that cannot exist — blue octagon

0 of 40 signs

  1. Shape "octagon" keeps one family: the STOP sign.
  2. Colour "blue" then removes it, because the STOP sign is a red octagon.
  3. Result: 0 of 40, with the reason stated, the only octagonal sign in the Sri Lankan set is the red STOP sign.
  4. That is a fact about the Manual, not a failure of the search, so the page says it in words instead of showing an empty grid.

An over-length search — the input edge case

40 of 40 signs

  1. The search box accepts up to 60 characters; this is 61.
  2. The query is reported and ignored. Every other axis still applies.
  3. Result: 40 of 40 with a message naming the limit, never a silent empty grid.

Sri Lankan road signs by family

The whole set at a glance. Shape and colour are prescribed per family by the RDA Manual, which is why the filter above can identify a sign you only half remember.

FamilyShape and colourSigns hereFine if disobeyed?
Warningamber diamond with a black border and a black symbol16No. It warns or informs
Prohibitorywhite circle inside a red ring12Yes, Rs 3,000 or the specific line
Mandatorysolid blue circle with a white symbol5Yes, Rs 3,000 or the specific line
Informatoryblue rectangle with a white symbol or letter4No. It warns or informs
Expresswaygreen rectangle with white lettering1No. It warns or informs
Stopred octagon reading STOP1Yes, Rs 3,000 or the specific line
Give waywhite downward-pointing triangle with a red border1Yes, Rs 3,000 or the specific line

Sources: RDA Manual on Traffic Control Devices (families, shapes, colours); Motor Traffic Act Chapter 203 s.151 and Gazette Extraordinary No. 2271/13 of 12 April 2022 (the penalty).

Frequently asked questions

Sources & references

The sign set, the statute sections and the joins to the fine and speed-limit schedules were last cross-checked against these sources on 2026-10-02. The page is reviewed whenever the RDA revises the Manual or a new gazette amends the spot-fine schedule.

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Comments & feedback

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