Bangladesh

Where the name comes from

Bangladesh joins Bengali Bangla, “Bengal”, and desh, “country”; Bangla may come from Vanga, an ancient Ganges delta kingdom, but this is uncertain.

First people

Farming peoples settled the Ganges delta long ago; the ruins at Wari-Bateshwar date back about 2,500 years.¹

Known for

Bangladesh is known for the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and a home of Bengal tigers.²

Outside contact

The East India Company’s victory at Plassey in 1757 began British expansion in Bengal.³

The modern country

The 1952 Bengali language movement in Dhaka, now remembered on International Mother Language Day, shaped East Pakistan’s separate identity before Bangladesh became independent in 1971.^4,5