 What we do |
Formerly called East Pakistan, the People's Republic of Bangladesh was born out of the turmoil of civil war and has remained in a state of political instability ever since. Around two million Bengalis were killed by the West Pakistan army in 1971 before India intervened in the conflict, causing Pakistan to surrender and Bangladesh to come into existence. Since then, two of its presidents have been assassinated and there have been periods of martial law, states of emergency and large scale imprisonment of political activists. Population
With a population density of 780 people per square kilometer Bangladesh is one of the world's most crowded countries, surpassed only by the city states of Hong Kong and Singapore. More than 23 million people live in the urban areas of Bangladesh, almost half of them in three major cities: Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna. In Dhaka, where there is an estimated 3000 slums, the population growth rate is as much as 9% per annum and it is estimated that by 2015, its population will be in excess of 20 million (UN Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision). Although more than half of GDP is generated through the service sector, nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshis are employed in the agriculture sector, with rice as the single most important product. GeographyBangladesh is a country dominated by its rivers. The Himalayan Rivers: the Ganges (Padma) and the Brahmaputra (Jamuna) divide the land into four major regions; north-west, south-west, central and eastern. The Ganges and the Brahmaputra have very apparent effects on the Bangladeshi landform: constant erosion and flooding over the alluvial plains change the course of rivers, landscapes and agriculture. The alluvial river plains, which are heavily farmed, dominate nine-tenths of the country and are very flat, never rising more than 10 meters above sea level. Approximately one-third of the country floods annually during the monsoon season.
Bangladesh has no great mountains or deserts. Areas outside of the farmland of the plains are characterized by wooded marshlands and jungles with forest regions, which cover 15% of total land area. Bangladesh has three main seasons: the monsoon from mid June to mid October, the 'cold' season from mid October to the end of February and the 'hot' season from March to the end of May. The climate of Bangladesh is sub-tropical and tropical with temperatures ranging from a daytime low of 21 degrees centigrade in the cold season to a high of 35 degrees centigrade in the hot season. Annual rainfall varies from 1000 mm in the west to 2500 mm in the south-east and up to 5000 mm in the sub-mountain region of the hills of Assam. Bangladesh, on average is affected 16 times a decade by cyclones which form in the Bay of Bengal during the monsoon season and often have a devastating effect on large sections of the population.
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
