Bangladesh

Bangladesh (বাংলাদেশ, Bānlādesh), officially the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ, Gaṇaprajātantrī Bānlādesh), is a country in South Asia on the Bay of Bengal. It is a unitary republic with a parliamentary form of government and a single-chamber legislature ¹⁴. Administratively it is divided into eight divisions and 64 districts ², and its capital is Dhaka.

Name and constitutional identity

The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 4 November 1972 and came into force on 16 December 1972 ¹. Its preamble records that the people of Bangladesh proclaimed independence on 26 March 1971 ¹. Article 2 defines the territory of the Republic as comprising the territories that, immediately before the Proclamation of Independence on 26 March 1971, constituted East Pakistan, together with such other territories as may become included ¹. Article 2A provides that the state religion of the Republic is Islam, and that the State shall ensure equal status and equal right in the practice of the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and other religions ¹. Article 3 provides that the state language of the Republic is Bangla ¹.

The Constitution has been amended 17 times; the most recent amendment was made on 8 July 2018 ⁹. As of 19 September 2026 no verified record of a later amendment was located (see Verification notes).

Land and population

The national land area is recorded as 147,570 km² in compilations of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data ⁵. The most recent national census was the sixth Population and Housing Census, conducted in June 2022. Its final adjusted result, published by BBS on 9 April 2023, is a total population of 169,828,911 ⁶. The eight division totals published from the same census sum to that national figure ⁵.

System of government

The Constitution establishes three branches of state. Part IV (Articles 48–60) governs the executive, comprising the President, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, and also contains the local government provisions ¹. Part V (Article 65 onwards) establishes Parliament, the Jatiya Sangsad (জাতীয় সংসদ) ¹. Part VI (Articles 94–113) establishes the Supreme Court, comprising the Appellate Division and the High Court Division ¹.

The Jatiya Sangsad has 350 seats: 300 filled by direct election from single-member constituencies and 50 reserved for women, filled by election among Members of Parliament ⁴.

Administrative structure

Bangladesh has a two-part administrative system: a field administration of central-government officers at division, district and upazila level, and an elected local-government tier at union, upazila, municipal and city-corporation level ¹⁸.

• The eight divisions each have a Divisional Commissioner as the senior central-government officer. See Administrative divisions of Bangladesh.
• The 64 districts each have a Deputy Commissioner. See Districts of Bangladesh.
• Upazilas are the tier below the district, each headed administratively by an Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO), with an elected Upazila Parishad headed by a chairman. See Upazila system and Local government in Bangladesh.
• Local-government bodies are administered by the Local Government Division (স্থানীয় সরকার বিভাগ) of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives ⁸.

Articles 59 and 60 of the Constitution require that local government in every administrative unit be entrusted to bodies composed of elected persons, and empower Parliament to confer powers on those bodies by law ¹.

Central government and finance

The central government is organised into ministries and divisions. The National Portal of Bangladesh enumerates 43 named ministry- and division-level entries and states a total of 57 ministries/divisions, a figure that counts the divisions sitting inside ministries separately ³. See Ministries and divisions of Bangladesh and Government of Bangladesh.

Public finance is administered by the Ministry of Finance (অর্থ মন্ত্রণালয়), which comprises four divisions — the Finance Division, the Economic Relations Division, the Internal Resources Division and the Financial Institutions Division ³. Development planning is administered by the Ministry of Planning. The Bangladesh Bank (বাংলাদেশ ব্যাংক) is the central bank and the issuer of the national currency, the Taka (৳) ⁷.

Current state of affairs

As of 19 September 2026, the 13th parliamentary election was held on 12 February 2026 and the present government, led by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, was sworn in on 17 February 2026 ⁴. It succeeded an interim government led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, which governed from August 2024 ⁴. The conduct of the February 2026 election is contested; the attributed positions are recorded in Government of Bangladesh § Disputed points.

Terminology note

Naming conventions for the 1971 conflict vary; this article uses the term Liberation War, as used in the Constitution of Bangladesh, while noting the alternatives in circulation ¹. Casualty figures for that conflict are not published on this site except as a range of attributed estimates.

Verification notes

The following could not be verified from a T1–T3 source during research on 19 September 2026, and are therefore not asserted above:

• Whether a constitutional amendment later than the Seventeenth Amendment (8 July 2018) has been enacted. The latest verifiable count is 17 ⁹.
• The national land area from a primary BBS publication. The figure given is drawn from a T2 compilation of BBS data ⁵; the BBS national census report PDF was located but exceeded the size limit for retrieval, and the BBS website returned no values to a direct fetch.
• Any population, household or area figure produced after the 2022 census. No post-2022 census has been conducted.

Sources

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

1. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (as amended) — Preamble, Articles 2, 2A, 3, 59, 60, 65, 94 — Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Division, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-367.html
2. Bangladesh National Portal — District list (জেলা সমূহ) — Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://bangladesh.gov.bd/views/district-list
3. Bangladesh National Portal — List of Ministries and Divisions (মন্ত্রণালয় / বিভাগের তালিকা) — Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://bangladesh.gov.bd/views/ministry-and-directorate-list
4. Jatiya Sangsad — Introduction — Bangladesh Parliament Secretariat (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.parliament.gov.bd/about/introduction
5. 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/
6. Bangladesh’s total population stands at 169,828,911 — New Age (reporting the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics final census result) (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.newagebd.net/article/199023/bangladeshs-total-population-stands-at-169828911
7. Bangladesh Bank — About Us — Bangladesh Bank (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.bb.org.bd/en/index.php/about/index
8. Local Government Division — home page — Local Government Division, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://lgd.gov.bd/
9. Interactive timeline: 17 constitutional amendments since Bangladesh’s independence — The Business Standard (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/interactive-timeline-17-constitutional-amendments-bangladeshs-independence-1020436

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Every factual claim above is attributed to a numbered source. Figures marked “as of” were retrieved on that date. Not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation.