Bangladesh
Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world and one of the most densely populated countries with a population of about 170 million in an area of 148,460 square kilometres (57,320 sq mi). Bangladesh shares land borders with India to the north, west and east and Myanmar to the southeast. To the south, it has a coastline along the Bay of Bengal. It is narrowly separated from Bhutan and Nepal by the Siliguri Corridor and from China by the Indian mountainous state of Sikkim to the north. The capital and largest city, Dhaka, is the political, financial, and cultural center of the country. Chittagong, the second largest city, is the busiest port on the Bay of Bengal. The official language of Bangladesh is Bengali.
Bangladesh forms a sovereign part of the historical and ethnic region of Bengal, which was partitioned during the Partition of India in 1947 as part of a Muslim union with Pakistan, which had seceded from it in 1971. There is a Bengali Muslim majority in the country. Ancient Bengal was known as Gangaridai and was a bastion of pre-Islamic kingdoms. The Muslim conquests after 1204 ushered in the Sultanate and Mughal period, during which an independent Bengal Sultanate and a wealthy Mughal Bengal transformed the region into an important centre of regional affairs, trade, and diplomacy. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the greatest expanse of British Bengal extended from the Khyber Pass in the west to Singapore in the east. The creation of Eastern Bengal and Assam in 1905 set a precedent for the emergence of Bangladesh. The All India Muslim League was established in Dhaka in 1906. In 1940, A. K. Fazlul Huq, the first Prime Minister of Bengal, supported the Lahore Resolution. Before the partition of Bengal, Prime Minister HS Suhrawardy proposed a Bengali sovereign state. A referendum and the proclamation of the Radcliffe Line established present-day territorial boundaries.
In 1947, East Bengal became the most populous province of the Dominion of Pakistan. Its name was changed to East Pakistan, Dhaka became the legislative capital of the country. Bengali Language Movement in 1952; East Bengal Legislative Assembly election, 1954; the 1958 Pakistani coup d'état; the Six-Point Movement of 1966; And the Pakistani general elections of 1970 led to the rise of Bengali nationalism and pro-democracy movements. The Pakistani military junta's refusal to hand over power to the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led to the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. With the help of India, the Mukti Bahini carried out a successful armed revolution. The conflict saw Bangladeshi genocide and the massacre of pro-independence Bengali civilians, including intellectuals. The new state of Bangladesh became the first constitutionally secular state in South Asia in 1972. Islam was declared the state religion in 1988. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh reaffirmed the secular principles in the constitution.
A middle power in the Indo-Pacific, Bangladesh is home to the world's sixth-most-spoken language, the world's third-largest Muslim-majority population, and South Asia's second-largest economy. It maintains the third-largest military force in the region and is the largest contributor to personnel in UN peacekeeping operations. Bangladesh is a unitary parliamentary republic based on the Westminster system. Bengalis constitute 99% of the total population. The country is made up of eight divisions, 64 districts, and 495 sub-districts, as well as the largest mangrove forest in the world. It hosts one of the world's largest refugee populations due to the Rohingya genocide. Bangladesh faces many challenges, especially corruption, political instability, overpopulation and the impacts of climate change. Bangladesh is the leader in the Climate Vulnerable Forum. It is the host of the headquarters of BIMSTEC. It is a founding member of SAARC, as well as a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Commonwealth of Nations.
