Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar (Burma). The country's maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area. Bangladesh is the world's eighth most populous country as well as its most densely-populated, to the exclusion of small island nations and city-states. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong, which has the country's largest port. Bangladesh forms the largest and easternmost part of the Bengal region. Bangladeshis include people from a range of ethnic groups and religions. Bengalis, who speak the official Bengali language, make up 98% of the population. The politically dominant Bengali Muslims make the nation the world's third largest Muslim-majority country. Islam is the official religion of Bangladesh.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines, commonly known as Biman, pronounced, is the national flag carrier of Bangladesh, having its main hub at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka with its flights also operating from its secondary hubs at Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong as well as Osmani International Airport in Sylhet. The airline provides international passenger and cargo services to multiple destinations and has air service agreements with 42 countries. The headquarters of the airline, Balaka Bhaban, is located in Kurmitola, in the northern part of Dhaka. Annual Hajj flights; transporting tourists, migrants and non-resident Bangladeshi workers; and the activities of its subsidiaries form an integral part of the corporate business of the airline. Bangladesh's air transport sector, which is experiencing an 8% annual growth rate thanks to a large number of outbound tourists, domestic tourists and non-resident Bangladeshi travellers, is very competitive with stiff competition among a number of domestic Bangladeshi private airlines as well as Biman.
Khaleda Zia is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first woman in the country's history and second in the Muslim majority countries to head a democratic government as prime minister. She was the First Lady of Bangladesh during the presidency of her husband Ziaur Rahman. She is the current chairperson and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which was founded by Rahman in the late 1970s.
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.
Sheikh Hasina Wazed is a Bangladeshi politician serving as the 10th Prime Minister of Bangladesh, having held the office since January 2009. She is the longest serving prime minister in the history of Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Liberation War, also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, or simply the Liberation War in Bangladesh, was a revolution and armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in what was then East Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. It resulted in the independence of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The war began after the Pakistani military junta based in West Pakistan launched Operation Searchlight against the people of East Pakistan on the night of 25 March 1971. It pursued the systematic elimination of nationalist Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, religious minorities and armed personnel. The junta annulled the results of the 1970 elections and arrested Prime minister-designate Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The war ended on 16 December 1971 after West Pakistan surrendered.
The Bangladesh national cricket team, is administered by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). Bangladesh is a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test and One Day International (ODI) status. It played its first Test match in November 2000 against India in Dhaka, becoming the tenth Test-playing nation.
Mohammad Ashraful is a Bangladeshi cricketer, who has represented the Bangladesh national cricket team in all formats of the game and a former captain of all formats. A top-order batsman with a penchant for flashy strokeplay, he was also selected to represent the ACC Asia XI ODI side.
The 1970 Bhola cyclone was a devastating tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan and India's West Bengal on November 12, 1970. It remains the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded and one of the deadliest natural disasters. At least 500,000 people lost their lives in the storm, primarily as a result of the storm surge that flooded much of the low-lying islands of the Ganges Delta. This cyclone was the sixth cyclonic storm of the 1970 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, and also the season's strongest.
Mashrafe Bin Mortaza (Bengali: মাশরাফি বিন মর্তুজা pronunciation ; is a Bangladeshi international cricketer, current captain of the One Day Internationals for Bangladesh national cricket team and member of the parliament Jatiya Sangsad from Narail-2. He also captained Bangladesh in Twenty20 Internationals. He broke into the national side in late 2001 against Zimbabwe and represented Bangladesh before having played a single first-class match. Mortaza captained his country in one Test and seven One Day Internationals between 2009 and 2010, however injury meant he was in and out of the side and Shakib Al Hasan was appointed captain in Mortaza's absence. Mortaza used to be considered one of the fastest bowlers produced by Bangladesh, previously bowling in the mid-135s-145s km/h in the 2000s, and regularly opens the bowling. He is a useful lower-middle order batsman, with a first-class century and three Test half centuries to his name. Mortaza's career has been hampered by injuries and he has undergone a total of ten operations on his knees and ankles.
Mohammad Mushfiqur Rahim is a Bangladeshi cricketer and the former captain of the Bangladesh national cricket team. Between August 2009 and December 2010 Rahim served as Bangladesh's vice-captain in all formats. At domestic level he represents Rajshahi Division and captains Sylhet Super Stars. According to Jamie Siddons in 2010, a former Bangladesh coach, Rahim's batting is so versatile that he can bat anywhere in the top order, from one to six.
Osmani Airport is third largest airport in Bangladesh after Dhaka and Chittagong. The airport is operated by the Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) and is served by Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the national airline, which at one point earned most of its revenue from this airport. Private airlines Novoair and US-Bangla Airlines operate domestic flights to Dhaka. The vast majority of passengers using the airport are expatriate Bangladeshis and their descendants from the Sylhet Division living in the United Kingdom.
Shakib Al Hasan is a Bangladeshi international cricketer who currently captains the Bangladesh national team in Test and T20I formats. He is well known for being a Top all rounder in Bangladesh. His aggressive left-handed batting style in the middle order, controlled slow left-arm orthodox bowling, and athletic fielding has helped him win trophies in top leagues across the world.
Cyclone Sidr was a tropical cyclone that resulted in one of the worst natural disasters in Bangladesh. The fourth named storm of the 2007 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, Sidr formed in the central Bay of Bengal, and quickly strengthened to reach peak 1-minute sustained winds of 260 km/h (160 mph), making it a Category-5 equivalent tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The storm eventually made landfall in Bangladesh on November 15, 2007, causing large-scale evacuations. 3,447 deaths were blamed on the storm.
The Bangladesh Armed Forces and the Bangladesh Police have been actively involved in a number of United Nations Peace Support Operations (UNPSO) since 1988.
This is a timeline of Bangladeshi history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Bangladesh and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Bangladesh. See also the list of Presidents of Bangladesh and list of Prime Ministers of Bangladesh, and the list of years in Bangladesh.
British Bangladeshis are people of Bangladeshi origin who have attained citizenship in the United Kingdom, through immigration and historical naturalisation. During the 1970s, large numbers of Bangladeshis immigrated to the UK, primarily from the Sylhet Division. The largest concentration live in east London boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets. This large diaspora in London leads people in Bangladesh to refer to British Bangladeshis as "Londonis".
The Bangladesh–India border, known locally as the International Border (IB), is an international border running between Bangladesh and India that demarcates the eight divisions of Bangladesh and the Indian states.
Maulvibazar-3 is a constituency represented in the Jatiya Sangsad of Bangladesh since 2019 by Nesar Ahmed of the Awami League.
