Bangladesh Map

About Bangladesh

Bangladesh occupies most of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, the largest river delta in the world. India surrounds it on the west, north and east, a short stretch of border in the south-east is shared with Myanmar, and the Bay of Bengal lies to the south. About 176 million people (UN World Population Prospects, 2025 estimate) live in an area of 148,460 km², which makes Bangladesh the most densely populated country in the world apart from city-states and very small island nations, at well over 1,100 people per km².

A country made by rivers

Three of Asia's great rivers come together here. The Ganges enters from India and is called the Padma in Bangladesh. The Brahmaputra arrives from Assam and becomes the Jamuna. The Meghna drains the Sylhet basin. After they join, the combined flow reaches the sea through the Meghna estuary. Including their tributaries and distributaries, the country has roughly 700 rivers, and 54 of them cross the border from India. Sharing their water is a constant issue. The Ganges Water Sharing Treaty of 1996, which governs dry-season flows below India's Farakka Barrage, runs for 30 years and expires in December 2026.

Most of the country is less than 10 m above sea level. Rivers shift their courses, islands of silt (chars) appear and vanish, and in the north-east the haor wetlands turn into inland seas each monsoon. The only real hills are the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the south-east, which rise to just over 1,000 m on the Myanmar border, and the low tea-growing hills around Sylhet. In the south-west the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, spreads across the delta; about 60 percent of it is in Bangladesh and the rest in India's West Bengal. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the last strongholds of the Bengal tiger.

Monsoon, cyclones and when to visit

The climate is tropical monsoon. The rainy season lasts roughly from June to October, and in a typical year a fifth or more of the country floods. The hot pre-monsoon months of March to May bring thunderstorms ("nor'westers"). Tropical cyclones from the Bay of Bengal are most likely in April-May and October-November. Better warnings and shelters have sharply reduced deaths since the 1970 Bhola cyclone, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. The best time to visit is the dry, mild winter from November to February.

Divisions and cities

Bangladesh is divided into eight divisions, named after their main cities (Barishal, Chattogram, Dhaka, Khulna, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Sylhet), and 64 districts. Figures below are for city corporations in the 2022 census.

• Dhaka - The capital, with about 10.3 million people in its two city corporations and many more in the surrounding metropolitan region. It is the centre of government and of the garment industry, and since 2022 has had its first metro line.
• Chattogram (Chittagong) - The main seaport, with about 3.2 million people, on the Karnaphuli River. Most of the country's sea trade passes through it.
• Khulna - The south-western river port, with about 720,000 people, close to the Sundarbans and to Mongla, the second seaport.
• Rajshahi - On the Padma near the Indian border, with about 550,000 people. It is known for silk, mangoes and its university.
• Sylhet - The north-eastern centre of the tea gardens, with about 530,000 people. Many British Bangladeshis trace their roots to this area.

Cox's Bazar, south of Chattogram, has a beach about 120 km long that is often described as the longest natural sea beach in the world. The camps nearby shelter around a million Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar, most of them since 2017.

How the borders were drawn

The territory was the eastern half of Bengal under British rule. At the partition of 1947 it became East Bengal, later East Pakistan, separated from West Pakistan by about 1,600 km of India. The 1952 Language Movement, in defence of Bengali against the imposition of Urdu as the sole national language, became a founding moment of national identity. Bangladesh declared independence on 26 March 1971, and the war ended on 16 December 1971. One of the odder legacies of partition, more than 160 tiny enclaves scattered along the northern border with India, was resolved in 2015, when the two countries exchanged them under a land boundary agreement.

Politics since 2024

In July and August 2024 student-led protests, which began over quotas for government jobs, grew into a nationwide uprising. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in power since 2009, resigned and left for India on 5 August 2024. An interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took over. The Awami League was barred from the general election held on 12 February 2026, which the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won by a large majority. BNP leader Tarique Rahman was sworn in as prime minister on 17 February 2026.

Economy and links

Ready-made garments make up the large majority of export earnings, and Bangladesh is the world's second-largest clothing exporter after China. Remittances from workers in the Gulf, Malaysia and elsewhere are the other big source of foreign currency. The 6.15 km Padma Bridge, opened in 2022, gave the south-west a fixed road and rail link to Dhaka for the first time. Bangladesh had been due to leave the UN's list of least developed countries on 24 November 2026, but in 2026 it asked for a three-year extension. The UN Committee for Development Policy backed the request, and the General Assembly has the final say. Bangladesh is a founding member of SAARC, set up at a summit in Dhaka in 1985, and of BIMSTEC.

Interesting Facts

• UNESCO made 21 February, the date protesters were killed in Dhaka during the 1952 Language Movement, International Mother Language Day.
• The country has three World Heritage sites: the Sundarbans, the mosque city of Bagerhat and the Buddhist monastery ruins at Paharpur.
• Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microcredit.