Tropical; mild winter (October to March); hot humid summer (March to June); humid warm rainy monsoon (June to October)
Natural Hazards
Mostly flat alluvial plain; hilly in southeast
Note:
Most of the country is situated on deltas of large rivers flowing from the Himalayas: the Ganges unites with the Jamuna (main channel of the Brahmaputra) and later joins the Meghna to eventually empty into the Bay of Bengal
Europeans began to set up trading posts in the area of Bangladesh in the 16th century; eventually the British came to dominate the region and it became part of British India. In 1947 West Pakistan and East Bengal (both primarily Muslim) separated from India (largely Hindu) and jointly became the new country of Pakistan. East Bengal became East Pakistan in 1955 but the awkward arrangement of a two-part country with its territorial units separated by 1 600 km left the Bengalis marginalized and dissatisfied. East Pakistan seceded from its union with West Pakistan in 1971 and was renamed Bangladesh. A military-backed emergency caretaker regime suspended parliamentary elections planned for January 2007 in an effort to reform the political system and root out corruption. In contrast to the strikes and violent street rallies that had marked Bangladeshi politics in previous years the parliamentary elections finally held in late December 2008 were mostly peaceful. Sheikh HASINA Wajed was reappointed prime minister. About a third of this extremely poor country floods annually during the monsoon rainy season hampering economic development. Read more on Wikipedia
