A History of Bangladesh

After independence the Bengal delta experienced new economic vitality, brisk population growth and unprecedented urbanisation. Humans put pressure on the environment as never before. Now a breathtaking race was on: was the delta headed for boom or bust?

Towns are nothing new in the Bengal delta, where urban centres go back over 2,000 years. Even so, the vast majority of people have always lived in villages. This holds true for recent history as well. In 1970 over 90 per cent of Bangladeshis lived in the countryside, and today 75 per cent of Bangladeshis still do so. Meanwhile the population of Bangladesh has doubled, so today rural crowding is more acute than ever before.

It is no surprise, then, that many Bangladeshis decided to try their luck in the cities and that these grew at an astonishing rate. At the birth of Bangladesh the new capital, Dhaka, had 1 million inhabitants; by 1990 it had 6 million and by 2007 14 million. This very steep rise makes it one of the fastest-growing cities in the world and – with at least 300,000 mostly poor Bangladeshis moving to Dhaka every year – predictions are that the city will reach 24 million inhabitants in 2025. By that time it will have joined the select club of the world's true mega-cities. And Dhaka is not alone. Other cities are growing rapidly as well: Chittagong, which had 0.8 million inhabitants in 1971, had 4 million in 2007.