Sri Lanka is an island, 65,610 square km in area situated close to the Southeast corner of the peninsula of India. Despite its relatively small size, Sri Lanka possesses a high level of biodiversity. A noteworthy feature of Sri Lanka's biodiversity is the remarkable high proportion of endemic species among its flora and fauna: 23% of the flowering plants and 16% of the mammals in the island are endemic. Sri Lanka has a wide range of topographic and climatic variation and this contributes to the special features of its biodiversity.