Villages of Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, a village is the smallest territorial and social unit for administrative and representative purposes.^[1] It is an elective unit of a Union Council from which a single council member is elected. Usually one village is designated as a wardand each union is made up of nine villages.

At the 1991 census, villages in Bangladesh had an average of 232 households.

Divisions of Bangladesh

The administration of Bangladesh is divided into eight major regions called divisions (বিভাগ bibhag). Each division is named after the major city within its jurisdiction that also serves as the administrative headquarters of that division. Each division is further split into several districts (জেলা jela) which are then further sub-divided into Upazilas (উপজেলা upôjela).

History

Following the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the country had four divisions: Chittagong Division, Dhaka Division, Khulna Divisionand Rajshahi Division.

In 1983, the English spelling of the Dacca Division (along with the name of the capital city) was changed into Dhaka to more closely match the Bengali pronunciation.

In 1993, Barisal Division was split off from Khulna Division; in 1995,Sylhet Division was split off from Chittagong Division; and in 2010 (25 January), Rangpur Division was split off from Rajshahi Division. In terms of area the newly formed Rangpur Division ranked fifth followed by Barisal and Sylhet division.^[1]

On 14 September 2015 Mymensingh Division was added as eighth division. In 2015 there started process to create two more divisions,Comilla Division and Faridpur Division.

Districts of Bangladesh

The divisions of Bangladesh are divided into 64^[1] districts, or zila (bengaliজেলা/জিলা=Zela/zila). The capital of a district is called a district seat (zila sadar). The districts are further subdivided into 493 sub-districts or upazila (উপজেলা upojela).

District Councils

District Council (or Zila Parishad) is a local government body at the district level.^[2] The Bengali word parishad means council and zila parishadtranslates to district council.

The functions of the District Council include construction and maintenance of roads, and bridges, building hospitals and dispensaries, schools and educational institutions, health facilities and sanitation, tube wells for drinking water, rest houses, and coordination of activities of the Union Parishads within the District.

Upazilas of Bangladesh

Upazila (Bengali: উপজেলা, lit. ‘sub-district’ pronounced: upojela), formerly called thana (Bengali: থানা), is a geographical region in Bangladesh used for administrative or other purposes. They function as sub-units of districts. Their functionality can be seen to be analogous to that of a county or aborough of Western countries.

Bangladesh, at present, has 490 upazilas (as of 9 May 2016).^[1] The upazilas are the second lowest tier of regional administration in Bangladesh. The administrative structure consists in fact in Divisions (8), Districts (64), Upazila/Thana and Union Parishads (UPs). This system of devolution was introduced by the former military ruler and President of Bangladesh,Lieutenant General Hossain Mohammad Ershad, in an attempt to strengthen local government.

Below UPs, villages (gram) and para exist, but these have no administrative power and elected members. The Local Government Ordinance of 1982 was amended a year later, redesignating and upgrading the existing thanas asupazilas.

History

Upazilas were formerly known as thana which literally means police station. Despite the meaning, thanas functioned much as an administrative and geographic region, much as today’s upazilas. In 1982 thanas were re-termed to as upazilas with provisions for semi-autonomous local governance. This system was reverted to the thana system in 1992. Later in 1999 geographic regions under administrations of thanas were converted into upazilas.^[3] All administrative terms in this level were renamed from thana to upazilla. For instance, Thana Nirbahi Officer (lit.Thana Executive Officer) was renamed to Upazilla Nirbahi Officer (lit.Upazilla Executive Officer). The word thana is now used to solely refer to police stations. Generally, there is one police station for each upazilla; but larger administrative units may have more than one police station covering different regions.

List of cities and towns in Bangladesh

According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, The administrative populated areas which have population of 100,000 or more than that can be defined as a city in Bangladesh. The administrative populated areas which have population less than 100,000 are classified as towns.^[1] The following is a list of cities and towns in Bangladesh.