Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan between 1955 and 1971 and East Bengal between 1947 and 1955) is largely ethnically homogeneous and its name derives from the Bengali ethno-linguistic group which comprises 99% of the population. The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Sylhet, Mymensingh, Barisal and North Bengal regions are home to diverse tribal peoples. There are many dialects of Bengali spoken throughout the region. The dialect spoken by those in Chittagong and Sylhet are particularly distinctive. About (91.04%) of Bangladeshis are Muslims, followed by Hindus (largest-minority) at (7.95%), Buddhists (0.61%) and Christians (0.30%) and others (0.12%) as per 2022 census.
Bangladesh had high rates of population growth in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then however it has seen significant reduction in its total fertility rate. Over a period of three decades it dropped from almost 7 to 2 in 2005–2018.[13]
The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates. Population estimates account for under numeration in population censuses.[18]
Largest Ethnic Group by Upazila in Bangladesh Based on The 2022 Census
Biharis are Urdu-speaking, non-Bengalis who emigrated from the state of Bihar and other parts of northern India during the 1947 partition. They are concentrated in the Dhaka and Rangpur areas and number some 300,000.[25][26] In the 1971 independence war many of them sided with Pakistan, as they stood to lose their positions in the upper levels of society.[27] Hundreds of thousands went to Pakistan and those that remained were interned in refugee camps. Their population declined from about 1 million in 1971 to 600,000 in the late 1980s.[27]Refugees International has called them a "neglected and stateless" people as they are denied citizenship by the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan.[28] As nearly 40 years has passed, two generations of Biharis have been born in these camps. Biharis were granted Bangladeshi citizenship and voting rights in 2008.[29]
Bangladesh's tribal population was enumerated at 897,828 in the 1981 census.[27] These tribes are concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and around Mymensingh, Sylhet, and Rajshahi. They are of Sino-Tibetan descent and differ markedly in their social customs, religion, language and level of development. They speak Tibeto-Burman languages and most are Buddhist or Hindu.[27] The four largest tribes are Chakmas, Marmas, Tipperas, Tanchangya, and Mros. Smaller groups include the Santals in Rajshahi and Dinajpur, and Khasis, Garos, and Khajons in Mymensingh and Sylhet regions.[27]
There are small communities of Meitei people (alias Manipuri people) in the Sylhet district, which is close to the Meitei homeland across the border in Manipur, India.[30][31]
There is a large population of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar near the border in the southeast. There are 28,000 living in two UN refugee camps in Cox's Bazar as well as some 200,000 "unregistered people of concern" living outside of the camps.[32] The refugee crisis originated in the early 1990s when the first wave numbering some 250,000 of the predominantly Muslim ethnic group fled persecution from their home in Rakhaine—Myanmar's westernmost state. Bangladesh seeks to repatriate the refugees back to Myanmar.[33] Since 2017, there are approximately 1.1 million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh.
Other languages: English (spoken and known widely in upper-class & politics), Arabic(sometimes spoken and known by many Muslims, due to Islam being the primary religion[citation needed]), Hindi/Urdu(understood by some, and spoken by Biharis)
Bangladesh has 44 indigenous languages according to Professor Shameem Reza.[40]
According to the United Nations, there were 1,500,921 international migrants in Bangladesh in 2017. Estimation shows that over 1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees live in Bangladesh have arrived during the ongoing Rohingya genocide in Myanmar.[47] On 28 September 2018, at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said there are 1.1-1.3 million Rohingya refugees now in Bangladesh.[48][49]
Their most common countries of origin were as follows:
↑ Najma Rizvi (16 June 2018). "Healthy Change". Dandc.eu. Archived from the original on 29 October 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
1 2 "World Population Prostpects 2019". Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. Archived from the original on 6 May 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
↑ "Population". Banglapedia. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
↑ "Manipuri language | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 11 July 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2023. Manipuri language, Manipuri Meiteilon, also called Meitei (Meetei), a Tibeto-Burman language spoken predominantly in Manipur, a northeastern state of India. Smaller speech communities exist in the Indian states of Assam, Mizoram, and Tripura, as well as in Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma).
↑ "Bangladesh: at a glance". Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics. Archived from the original on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
172,954,319 (2023) [1] 
1.89 children born/woman (2025) [7] 
