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Updates: 

Paraskevas Renesis and Fernando Álvarez pointed out that Mymensingh division has been split from Dhaka. Source [10] and others.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter II-3 is dated 2011-12-15. For Bangladesh, all the division codes have been changed from numbers to letters, and a code has been assigned to Rangpur. Before this update, Barisal was 1, Chittagong 2, Dhaka 3, Khulna 4, Rajshahi 5, and Sylhet 6.

Update 1 to the U.S. standard "Geopolitical Entities and Codes" is dated 2010-08-20. It assigns a FIPS code to the new Rangpur district.

Bangladesh adopted daylight saving time for 2009, to mitigate a power shortage in the country. It has been allowed to lapse in 2010.

FIPS Publication Change Notice No. 10, affecting FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2006-03-23. It assigns new FIPS codes to the Barisal and Sylhet divisions. It changes the code for Chittagong division, presumably because of its changed size.

Bangladesh is divided into bibhag (divisions), which are subdivided into 21 anchal (regions), then further into 64 zila (districts), then into about 493 thana or upazila (subdistricts), and finally into unions. ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-2 was published on 2002-05-21, showing Sylhet as a new division.

Country overview: 

Short name	BANGLADESH
ISO code	BD
FIPS code	BG
Language	Bengali (bn)
Time zone	+6
Capital	Dhaka

 

At the beginning of the 20th century, India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. It consisted of provinces directly under British control and Native States with feudal allegiance to the British crown. After World War II, Mahatma Gandhi's campaign of passive resistance induced Britain to grant India its independence. In an attempt to avoid ethnic conflict, the country was partitioned into a Hindu section (India) and a Muslim section (Pakistan). Pakistan became a Dominion of the British Commonwealth on 1947-08-14. It consisted of two separate areas of Muslim concentration. The eastern section corresponded to the prewar district of East Bengal, plus a small part of Assam. On 1955-08-14, the two sections became the provinces of West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The two sections suffered from mutual distrust. On 1971-03-26, East Pakistan declared its independence from Pakistan. A war ensued between India and Pakistan. On 1971-12-15, Pakistan accepted defeat, and East Pakistan became a separate country, aligned with India. The new nation was initially known as Bangla Desh.

Other names of country: 

1. Bengali: Gana Prajatantri Bangladesh (formal)
2. Danish: Bangladesh, Østpakistan (obsolete)
3. Dutch: Bangladesh, Volksrepubliek Bangladesh (formal)
4. English: People's Republic of Bangladesh (formal), East Pakistan (obsolete)
5. Finnish: Bangladesh
6. French: Bangladesh, République f populaire du Bangladesh m (formal)
7. German: Bangladesch n
8. Icelandic: Bangladess
9. Italian: Bangladesh m
10. Norwegian: Bangladesh, Folkerepublikken Bangladesh (formal)
11. Portuguese: Bangladesh, República f Popular do Bangladesh m (formal), Bengala Oriental (obsolete)
12. Russian: Народная Республика Бангладеш (formal)
13. Spanish: Bangladés, República f Popular de Bangladés (formal), Pakistán oriental (obsolete)
14. Swedish: Bangladesh
15. Turkish: Bangladeş, Bangladeş Halk Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

Bengali bongo: Bengali, desh: land

Primary subdivisions: 

Bangladesh is divided into eight bibhag (divisions).

Division	HASC	ISO	FIPS	PC	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)
Barisal	BD.BA	A	BG85	82-87	8,325,666	13,225	5,106
Chittagong	BD.CG	B	BG84	34-47	28,423,019	33,909	13,092
Dhaka	BD.DH	C	BG81	10-23, 77-81	36,433,505	20,509	7,919
Khulna	BD.KH	D	BG82	70-76, 90-94	15,687,759	22,284	8,604
Mymensingh	BD.MM	C	BG81	20-24	10,990,913	10,669	4,119
Rajshahi	BD.RS	E	BG83	58-67	18,484,858	18,153	7,009
Rangpur	BD.RP	F	BG87	50-57	15,787,758	16,185	6,249
Sylhet	BD.SY	G	BG86	30-33	9,910,219	12,635	4,878
8 divisions					144,043,697	147,569	56,977
HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. For full identification in a global context, prefix "BD-" to the code (ex: BD-D represents Khulna). FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. PC: First two digits of postal code in range. Population: 2011-03-15 census (source [8]) Capitals: Capitals have the same name as their divisions.

Postal codes: 

Bangladesh uses four-digit postal codes. By 2005 the Bangladesh Post Office had appended "00" to all of the codes in preparation for a six-digit scheme to be implemented in the future. At present, the fifth and sixth digits are optional.

Further subdivisions:

See the Districts of Bangladesh page.

Territorial extent: 

Sandwip Island, and other coastal islands to the south and east, down to Saint Martin's Island, are in Chittagong region. Hatia Island and South Hatia Island are in Noakhali region.

According to Brendan Whyte, an expert on the subject, Bangladesh has 92 exclaves in India's West Bengal state (Jalpaiguri and Koch Bihar districts). In 21 of these cases, the Bangladeshi exclave is surrounded by a patch of Indian territory which is itself an exclave in Bangladesh.

The UN LOCODE page  for Bangladesh lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

1. Chittagong: Hindi chitta: white, ganv: village
2. Dhaka: Bengali dhak: name of a papilionaceous tree

Change history: 

1. 1983: Name of capital of country, and its division, changed from Dacca to Dhaka.
2. ~1993: Barisal division split from Khulna.
3. ~1998: Sylhet division split from Chittagong (former HASC code BD.CH, FIPS BG80).
4. 2010-01-25: Rangpur division formed by taking Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Panchagarh, Rangpur, and Thakurgaon districts from Rajshahi (former HASC code BD.RJ). I computed the new populations and areas by adding up the data for the districts belonging to each division.
5. 2015-09-15: Mymensingh division formed by taking Jamalpur, Mymensingh, Netrakona, and Sherpur districts from Dhaka (former HASC code BD.DA. I computed the new populations and areas by adding up the data for the districts belonging to each division. The press release gave slightly different figures for Mymensingh: population 11,369,606, area 10,585 km.²

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Barisal: Bakerganj (obsolete)
2. Chittagong: Chattagram (Bengali); Chitagongue (Portuguese-variant)
3. Dhaka: Daca (Portuguese); Dacca (obsolete, Spanish); Dakka (Icelandic)
4. Rangpur: Rongpur (variant)

Population history:

Division	1974-03-01	1981-03-06	1991-03-11	2001-01-23	2011-03-15
Barisal			7,757,334	8,173,718	8,325,666
Chittagong	18,636,177	22,565,556	21,865,850	24,290,384	28,423,019
Dhaka	21,316,067	26,248,864	33,939,848	39,044,716	47,424,418
Khulna	14,195,274	17,149,792	13,243,054	14,705,229	15,687,759
Rajshahi	17,331,553	21,087,812	27,499,727	30,201,873	18,484,858
Rangpur					15,787,758
Sylhet			7,149,372	7,939,343	9,910,219
Totals	71,479,071	87,052,024	111,455,185	124,355,263	144,043,697

Sources: 

1. [1] Library of Congress country study  (retrieved 1999).
2. [2] Bangladesh Population Census 1981. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, August, 1984.
3. [3] Statistical Abstract of Bangladesh, SOCOM Research Bureau, Society & Commerce Publications Private Ltd., Calcutta, March, 1975. Lists population data for 1901-1961. I'm not sure that the same regions existed throughout the period 1901-1941; those populations might have been calculated proleptically by agglomerating the populations of smaller units, to cover the same areas as the regions.
4. [4] Dutt, Ashok K., and M. Margaret Geib. Fully Annotated Atlas of South Asia. Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1987.
5. [5] Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Preliminary Report on the 2001 Population Census (http://www.bbsgov.org/Population%20Census%202001.PDF, dead link, retrieved 2005-11-19). This is the source for population data for 1974-1991.
6. [6] Bangladesh National Data Bank 1998 provisional population data (http://home.bangla.net/ndb/data-sheet/DEMO_DATA.htm, dead link, retrieved 2001-03-22).
7. [7] Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics  (retrieved 2011-03-10) is the source for 2001 population figures.
8. [8] Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics  is the source for 2011 census data and area figures (retrieved 2013-09-29).
9. [9] 1979 Demographic Yearbook , 31st Ed. Statistical Office, United Nations, New York, 1980 (retrieved 2011-12-28).
10. [10] "Mymensingh becomes 8th admin division ", The Independent online Bangladeshi news (retrieved 2015-12-02).