Upazila system

An upazila (উপজেলা, upajelā; the term replaced thana for this tier from 1982) is the administrative sub-unit of a district in Bangladesh, and the second tier of the central government’s field administration. Each upazila has a government office headed by an Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO; উপজেলা নির্বাহী অফিসার), and, separately, an elected Upazila Parishad (উপজেলা পরিষদ) headed by a directly elected chairman, with a vice-chairman and a woman vice-chairman ²³.

Position in the administrative hierarchy

The hierarchy runs division → district (zila) → upazila → union. Upazilas are divided into unions; below the union tier sit villages. The elected bodies at and below upazila level derive from Articles 59 and 60 of the Constitution, which provide that local government in every administrative unit is entrusted to bodies composed of elected persons and empower Parliament to confer powers on them by law ⁸.

The UNO is appointed through the Local Government Division; Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners, by contrast, are appointed by the central government ². Decisions on creating or reorganising upazilas are taken by the Cabinet Division through the National Implementation Committee for Administrative Reorganisation (NICAR) and operationalised by the Ministry of Public Administration ²⁷.

Government of an upazila

An upazila administration co-ordinates the offices of the line ministries operating below district level — including education, health, agriculture, and law and order — through the UNO’s office. This sub-district tier is the level at which most citizens encounter the state directly, and it is the smallest tier for which a full complement of departmental offices normally exists ².

Disputed points

The positions below are reported as their holders state them. This reference does not take a position on the disagreement, and none of the positions is presented as the default.

The current number of upazilas

Sources disagree on the current total, and the disagreement cannot be resolved from the evidence available. The positions are:

Figure	What it represents	Source
**495**	The long-standing total, still used in publications through early 2026	LoGICA Intergovernmental Profile 2023 ("There are 495 Upazilas") [S2]; IFES (495 upazila parishads) [S3]
**493**	A working figure used in some surveys and a 2022 enumerator manual; an older count	recorded in LoGICA’s own discussion of the variability of the figure [S2]
**499**	The number of upazilas listed on the official National Portal on 19 September 2026	National Portal upazila list, counted from the rendered page [S1]
**500**	The total after NICAR approved five new upazilas on 7 May 2026 (495 + 5)	The Business Standard [S5]
**503**	The total after NICAR approved a further three upazilas on 1 July 2026 (500 + 3)	Daily Sun [S6]

None of these figures reads as the default. As of 19 September 2026, the official National Portal entry for the upazila layer listed 499 upazilas across the 64 districts when counted from the rendered page ¹. The five upazilas approved on 7 May 2026 were Mokamtala (Bogura district), Matamuhuri (Cox’s Bazar), Ruhia and Bhulli (both Thakurgaon) and Chandraganj (Lakshmipur); of these, four appear in the portal listing and Matamuhuri does not ¹⁵. The three approved on 1 July 2026 were Fatikchhari North (Chattogram), Bangra (Cumilla) and Dakkhin Gafargaon (Mymensingh) ⁶. The difference between the portal count and the NICAR-approved total is therefore an update lag in the official listing, rather than a disagreement about the approvals themselves. Because the official listing (T1) and the reported approvals (T3) do not agree, the current total is recorded here as disputed and both figures are shown rather than one being selected.

A separate source explains why variation is normal at this tier: "the exact number of Upazilas changes slightly from year to year, as new Upazilas are created or others are converted into City Corporations". Three upazilas were created by NICAR in 2021 — Eidgaon (Cox’s Bazar), Modhyanagar (Sunamganj) and Dashar (Madaripur) ².

Verification notes

• The official National Portal upazila list was read from the rendered page because `bangladesh.gov.bd` views are client-rendered and return an empty shell to a direct fetch ¹.
• Upazila-level populations and areas are not published here. District-level census values were not retrievable from a T1 page in this research round; division-level 2022 census values are given in Administrative divisions of Bangladesh ⁴.
• The number of administrative thanas — police jurisdictions, which are a separate hierarchy from upazilas — was not verified.

Sources

8 sources cited. Tiers: T1 official or primary, T2 scholarly or curated, T3 media of record.

1. Bangladesh National Portal — Upazila list (উপজেলা সমূহ) — Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://bangladesh.gov.bd/views/upazila-list
2. LoGICA Intergovernmental Profile: Bangladesh, 2023 — Local Government and Decentralisation Initiative / decentralisation.net (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). http://decentralization.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/LOGICA_IGP_BGD2023.pdf
3. Elections in Bangladesh: 2024 Upazila Elections — International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.ifes.org/tools-resources/faqs/elections-bangladesh-2024-upazila-elections
4. Bangladesh: Divisions and Districts (source stated as Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics) — City Population (compilation of BBS data) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.citypopulation.de/en/bangladesh/div/admin/
5. Govt approves Bogura City Corporation, five new upazilas — The Business Standard (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/govt-approves-bogura-city-corporation-five-new-upazilas-1432741
6. Govt approves three new upazilas, one police station — Daily Sun (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.daily-sun.com/bangladesh/883489/govt-approves-three-new-upazilas-one-police-station
7. মন্ত্রিপরিষদ বিভাগ — জাতীয় প্রশাসনিক পুনর্বিন্যাস সংক্রান্ত জাতীয় বাস্তবায়ন কমিটি (NICAR) — Cabinet Division, Government of Bangladesh (as reported by BSS) (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.bssnews.net/news/366190
8. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh — Articles 59 and 60 (Local Government) — Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Division, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-367/section-24613.html

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