African Art

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 with a population of almost 177.8 million people within an area of 148,461 square kilometres (57,321 sq mi). Bangladesh shares land borders with India to the north, west, and east, and Myanmar to the southeast. It has a coastline along the Bay of Bengal to its south and is separated from Bhutan and Nepal by the Siliguri Corridor, and from China by the Indian states of West Bengal and Sikkim to its north. Dhaka, the capital and largest city, is the nation's political, financial, and cultural centre. Chittagong is the second-largest city and the busiest port of the country. The territory of modern Bangladesh was ruled by successive Hindu and Buddhist dynasties in ancient history. Following the Muslim conquest in 1204, the region came under Sultanate and Mughal rule. As the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire, Bengal became a major commercial centre, known for its textile industry and agricultural output. The Battle of Plassey in 1757 began British colonial rule, which lasted nearly two centuries; colonial policies redirected wealth from Bengal to Britain, while the region itself suffered repeated deadly famines. After the Partition of India in 1947, East Bengal became the eastern wing of the newly formed Dominion of Pakistan and was later renamed East Pakistan. During more than two decades of political and economic marginalisation by the West Pakistan–based government, East Pakistan saw growing civil unrest that culminated in the 1948–52 language movement, 1969 mass uprising and the 1971 non-cooperation movement. Following the Pakistani military's Operation Searchlight, the Bangladesh Liberation War began. The Mukti Bahini, aided by Indian forces, fought a war of independence, during which Pakistani forces carried out the Bangladesh genocide; Bangladesh became a sovereign nation on 16 December 1971. After independence, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led the country until his assassination in 1975; Ziaur Rahman, who later came to power, was himself assassinated in 1981. The 1980s were dominated by the dictatorship of Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who was overthrown in a mass uprising in 1990.

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See also

• ▸1952
• ▸Fagopyrum
• ▸Burkina Faso

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.