Sylhet Division is the northeastern division of Bangladesh. It is bordered by the Indian states of Meghalaya, Assam and Tripura to the north, east and south respectively, and by the Bangladeshi divisions of Chittagong to the southwest and Dhaka and Mymensingh to the west. Prior to 1947, it included the subdivision of Karimganj. However, Karimganj was inexplicably severed from Sylhet by the Radcliffe Boundary Commission. According to Niharranjan Ray, it was partly due to a plea from a delegation led by Abdul Matlib Mazumdar.
Sylhet, IPA:[sileʈ])) is a metropolitan city located in the northeastern region of Bangladesh. It is the administrative center of Sylhet Division. It is situated on the banks of the Surma River. The city has a population of approximately 700,000 people, making it the fifth-largest city in Bangladesh.
Moulvibazar also spelled Maulvibazar, Moulavibazar, and Maulavibazar, is the southeastern district of Sylhet Division in northeastern Bangladesh, named after the town of Moulvibazar. It is bordered by the Indian states of Tripura and Assam to the south and east, respectively; and by the Bangladeshi districts of Habiganj to the west and Sylhet to the north.
Netrokona is a district of the Mymensingh Division in northern Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi cuisine is the national cuisine of Bangladesh. It has been shaped by the region's history and river-line geography. The country has a tropical monsoon climate. The staple of Bangladesh is rice and fish. The majority of Bangladeshi people are ethnic Bengali, accustomed to Bengali cuisine, with a minority of non-Bengalis, many used to cuisines from different traditions and regions. Bangladeshi cooking features more meat dishes than the cuisine of neighbouring West Bengal, India.
Sylheti Nagri or Sylheti Nagari, known in classical manuscripts as Sylhet Nagri amongst many other names, was an Indic script of the Brahmic family. The script was historically used in areas of Bengal and Assam that were east of the Padma, primarily in the eastern part of the Sylhet region, to document Muslim religious poetry known as puthis; having no presence in formal documentations. In the course of the 20th century, it has lost much ground to the standardised Eastern Nagari script. Printing presses for Sylheti Nagri existed as late as into the 1970s, and in the 2000s, a Unicode font was created for the script.
Barlekha is an upazila (sub-district) of Moulvibazar District, located in Bangladesh's Sylhet Division.
Kulaura is the biggest upazila (subdistrict) of the Moulvibazar District in north-eastern Bangladesh. The total area of this upazila is 545 km2. Hakaluki Haor, the largest marsh wetland in Sylhet and one of the largest in Bangladesh is partially located there.
Fenchuganj is an upazila of Sylhet District in the Division of Sylhet, Bangladesh.
Jaintiapur is an upazila of Sylhet District in the Division of Sylhet, Bangladesh.
Itna is an upazila of Kishoreganj District in the Division of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Itna Upazila is one of the largest upazilas in Bangladesh by area. The reason for its spread is the massive Haor area.
The national language and official language of Bangladesh is Bangla according to the third article of the Constitution of Bangladesh. The second most spoken language in Bangladesh is claimed to be Burmese which is spoken by the Marma tribe in Chittagong Hill districts as the districts border Myanmar; it is also spoken by the Rohingya people. Almost 99% of Bangladeshis speak Bengali as their first language. Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 made it mandatory to use Bengali in all government affairs except in the cases of foreign relations. According to a 2022 census, Bengali is predominantly spoken by 99% of the country's population and it also serves as the national language of the nation. The indigenous people of northern and southeastern Bangladesh speak a variety of native languages. Bangladesh has 44 indigenous languages according to Professor Shameem Reza.
A haor is a wetland ecosystem in the north eastern part of Bangladesh which physically is a bowl or saucer shaped shallow depression, also known as a backswamp. During monsoon haors receive surface runoff water from rivers and canals to become vast stretches of turbulent water.
Hakaluki Haor is a marsh wetland ecosystem of north-eastern Bangladesh. It is one of Bangladesh's largest and one of Asia's large marsh wetland resources. Hakaluki Haor is bounded by the Kushiara river as well as a part of the Sonai Bardal river to the north, by the Fenchuganj-Kulaura railway to the west and to the south, and by the Kulaura-Beanibazar road the east. It lies between 24°35’ N to 24°44’ N and 92°00’ E to 92°08’ E.
Tourism in Bangladesh includes tourism to World Heritage Sites, historical monuments, resorts, beaches, picnic spots, forests, tribal people, and wildlife of various species. Activities for tourists include angling, water skiing, river cruising, hiking, rowing, yachting, and sea bathing.
The fauna of Bangladesh includes about 1,600 species of vertebrate fauna and about 1,000 species of invertebrate fauna based on incomplete records. The vertebrate fauna consists of roughly 22 species of amphibians, 708 species of fish, 126 species of reptiles, 628 species of birds and 113 species of mammals. The invertebrate fauna includes about 30 species of aphids, 20 species of bees, 178 species of beetles, 135 species of flies, 400 species of spiders, 150 species of lepidopterans 52 species of decapods, 30 species of copepods, 2 species of starfish, and some species of sand dollars, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins.
The Sylheti or Sylhetis are an Indo-Aryan ethnocultural group that are associated with the Sylhet region. There are strong diasporic communities in Barak Valley of Assam, India, North Tripura, as well as in rest of Bangladesh and northeast India. They speak Sylheti, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language that is considered "a distinct language by many and a dialect of Bengali by some others".
Bangladesh is an important tea-producing country. It is the 12th largest tea producer in the world. Its tea industry dates back to British rule, when the East India Company initiated the tea trade in the hills of the Sylhet region. In addition to that, tea cultivation was introduced to Greater Chittagong in 1840. Today, the country has 166 commercial tea estates, including many of the world's largest working plantations. The industry accounts for 3% of global tea production, and employs more than 4 million people.
Sikhism in Bangladesh has an extensive heritage and history, although Sikhs had always been a minority community in Bengal. Their founder, Guru Nanak visited a number of places in Bengal in the early sixteenth century where he introduced Sikhism to locals and founded numerous establishments. In its early history, the Sikh gurus despatched their followers to propagate Sikh teachings in Bengal and issued hukamnamas to that region. Guru Tegh Bahadur lived in Bengal for two years, and his successor Guru Gobind Singh also visited the region. Sikhism in Bengal continued to exist during the colonial period as Sikhs found employment in the region, but it declined after the partition in 1947. Among the eighteen historical gurdwaras in Bangladesh, only five are extant. The Gurdwara Nanak Shahi of Dhaka is the principal and largest gurdwara in the country. The Sikh population in the country almost entirely consists of businessmen and government officials from the neighbouring Republic of India.
The Laleng, also known as the Patra are a small indigenous ethnolinguistic group primarily living deep in the forests of Sylhet District and Moulvibazar District in Bangladesh. They speak the endangered Laiunghtor language. There are diaspora communities in the Indian states of Assam and Meghalaya. Most people living in Sylhet are even unaware of the existence of this minority community, although their presence dates back centuries, as they choose to stay hidden in the deep forests.
