ctginfo_districts

districts of the division

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-2 was published on 2002-05-21. It omits the regions, formerly included in the standard. It changes the spelling of Kishorganj to Kishoreganj. This seems to be correct, so I have made the same change in the table below.

At the date of its independence in 1971, Bangladesh was divided into four bibhag (divisions), which were subdivided into zila (districts), and then into thana or upazila (subdistricts). In about 1985, the status of the zila was changed to anchal (regions). The regions were subdivided into 64 new, smaller districts, each of which was formed of a set of thana.

The regions seem to be diminishing in importance. Therefore, I am presenting the districts as the secondary subdivisions of Bangladesh.

District	HASC	ISO	FIPS	Reg	Population	Area (km.²)
Bandarban	`BD.CG.BD`	`01`	`BG04`	`2A`	271,000	4,479
Chittagong	`BD.CG.CT`	`10`	`BG29`	`2D`	6,193,000	5,283
Cox's Bazar	`BD.CG.CB`	`11`	`BG31`	`2D`	1,667,000	2,492
Khagrachari	`BD.CG.KG`	`29`	`BG45`	`2E`	400,000	2,700
Parbattya Chattagram	`BD.CG.PC`	`56`	`BG67`	`2E`	457,000	6,116

HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. The middle two letters identify the division.
ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. For full identification in a global context, prefix "BD-" to the code (ex: BD-57 represents Sherpur).
FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4.
Reg: ISO code for region to which the district belongs (for key to codes, see table below).
Population: 1998 provisional data. Source: Bangladesh National Data Bank. The figures given here contain cumulative rounding errors and may be off by 1,000 or more.
Capitals: Capitals have the same name as their districts.

Postal codes:
Bangladesh uses a four-digit postal code. The first two digits are the same as the ISO code for the district.

Other names of districts:
Bandarban: Bandarbon (variant)
Cox's Bazar: Cox Bazar (variant)
Khagrachari: Khagrachhari, Ramgarh (variant)
Parbattya Chattagram: Chittagong Hill Tracts (English); Rangamati (variant)

The regions of Bangladesh are listed in the following table.

Region	ISO	FIPS	Population	Area (km.²)
Bandarban	`2A`	`BG04`	271,000	4,501
Chittagong	`2D`	`BG03`	7,860,000	7,457
Chittagong Hill Tracts	`2E`	`BG21`	857,000	8,679

ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. For full identification in a global context, prefix "BD-" to the code (ex: BD-57 represents Sherpur). The first digit of the ISO code for a region is the same as the ISO code for the division to which the region belongs (for key to codes, see Divions of bangladesh page). * Note: to preserve this pattern, I changed the ISO code for Sylhet region from 2T to 6T. ISO may eventually make the same change, but it's too soon to tell.
FIPS: When FIPS PUB 10-3 came out, Jamalpur was part of Mymensingh.
Population: 1998 provisional data. Source:Bangladesh National Data Bank. The figures given here contain cumulative rounding errors and may be off by 1,000 or more.
Capitals: All capitals have the same name as their region, except that Rangamati is the capital of Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Change history:
~1980: Bandarban split from Chittagong Hill Tracts.
1981: Khagrachhari split from Chittagong Hill Tracts, but was reintegrated again.
~1985: Status of districts changed to regions.

Other names of region:
Chittagong: Chattagram (Bengali)

Population history:

Region	1901	1911	1921	1931	1941	1951-03-01	1961-02-01	1974-03-01	1981-03-06	1991-03-11	1998
Bandarban									171,000	246,000	271,000
Chittagong	1,468,377	1,628,085	1,740,306	1,936,389	2,331,481	2,511,785	2,982,931	4,647,000	5,491,000	7,246,000	7,860,000
Chittagong Hill Tracts	124,762	153,830	173,243	212,922	247,053	287,274	385,079	541,000	580,000	796,000	857,000

Column headings are census dates, except 1998, which has provisional population data for 1998. Where cells are empty, the change history (above) should explain why. Before 1974, data for Nasirabad and Quaidabad are combined and listed under Mymensingh.

Sources: Data for 1901-1961 are from Statistical Abstract of Bangladesh, SOCOM Research Bureau, Society & Commerce Publications Private Ltd., Calcutta, March, 1975. I'm not sure that the same regions existed throughout the period 1901-1941; those populations might have been calculated by agglomerating the populations of smaller units, to cover the same areas as the regions. Data for 1974 are from Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th Edition, Chicago, 1984. Data for 1981 are from The Statesman's Yearbook 1988-1989, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1988. Data for 1991 and 1998 are from Bangladesh National Data Bank. The figures from the Bangladesh National Data Bank contain cumulative rounding errors and may be off by 2,500 or more.