The capital of Bangladesh is Dhaka. The country's capital and largest city stands on the eastern bank of the Buriganga River in the lower Ganges Delta, ringed by the Buriganga, Turag, Dhaleshwari and Shitalakshya rivers. Recent estimates put its wider urban area at about 36.6 million people, making it the second-largest city in the world and widely regarded as the most densely populated built-up area on Earth. Formerly spelled Dacca, it was a Mughal provincial capital from 1610, became the capital of East Pakistan in 1947, and has been the capital of independent Bangladesh since 1971. Four threads explain the city: power, faith, trade and daily life, and each has a specific address.
Power at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar and Louis Kahn's Parliament
Dhaka has been made a capital, lost the title and regained it several times. It became the seat of the Mughal province of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1610, under the governor Islam Khan I, who named it Jahangirnagar after the emperor Jahangir. The city peaked under the governor Shaista Khan (1644–1677 and 1680–1688); the English sailor Thomas Bowrey, visiting in 1669–70, guessed its population at 900,000 and thought it larger than London. Then a court rivalry cost it the title, and in 1717 the provincial capital moved to Murshidabad. Dhaka recovered its status only with the first partition of Bengal in 1905, when it became the capital of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and its lieutenant governors left their names on Hare Road, Bayley Road and Fuller Road.
After Partition in 1947, Dhaka became the capital of East Pakistan, and in 1962 it was declared the legislative capital of Pakistan. The military ruler Ayub Khan, aware of the gap between the two wings of the country, wanted a national assembly building in Dhaka. The architect Muzharul Islam brought in his former Yale teacher, Louis Kahn, whose preliminary design was approved in 1960; construction began in 1964 at what is now Sher-e-Bangla Nagar. The Liberation War stopped the work in 1971. Pakistani forces launched Operation Searchlight in Dhaka on 25 March 1971, and the war ended with the surrender of the Pakistan Eastern Command at the Ramna Race Course on 16 December 1971. The Constituent Assembly of Bangladesh declared Dhaka the national capital in 1972.
In 1974 the new government decided to finish Kahn's building without changing his design. Kahn died with the project about three-quarters complete, and his associate David Wisdom saw it through to completion on 28 January 1982. The Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban covers 840,000 square metres (210 acres), one of the largest legislative complexes in the world, and won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. It is Dhaka's most prominent architectural landmark.
Being capital means more than a parliament. Dhaka hosts more than 50 diplomatic missions and the headquarters of BIMSTEC, the regional cooperation group for the Bay of Bengal, as well as CIRDAP and the International Jute Study Group. It hosted the first summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in 1985, and a mass uprising in the city in 1990 brought back parliamentary democracy.
The other monument of Dhaka's political life is small by comparison. On 21 and 22 February 1952, police fired on students near Dhaka Medical College who were demanding official status for Bengali, and several were killed. The Shaheed Minar, designed by the sculptors Hamidur Rahman and Novera Ahmed, was completed in 1963, demolished during the fighting of 1971 and rebuilt after independence. Bengali won official status in Pakistan in 1956, and since 2000 the date has been observed worldwide as International Mother Language Day. The movement's legacy is covered in our guide to the language spoken in Bangladesh.
Faith from Dhakeshwari Temple to Baitul Mukarram
One theory of the city's name traces it to Dhakeshwari, "the goddess of Dhaka". The Dhakeshwari Temple in the old city is said to have been founded in the 12th century by Ballal Sen of the Sena dynasty, although repeated rebuilding means nothing visible dates from then. It is state-owned, which makes it Bangladesh's National Temple, and it has been the country's most important Hindu place of worship since the Pakistan Army destroyed the Ramna Kali Mandir in 1971. The original metal idol was taken to Kolkata at Partition; a replica is worshipped in Dhaka.
Dhaka is mostly Muslim, and its mosques span four centuries. In the Armanitola quarter, the Star Mosque, built by the nobleman Mirza Ghulam Pir, who died in 1860, was redecorated in the 1920s by the businessman Ali Jan Bepari with blue stars in chinitikri, a mosaic of broken china; it appears on the 100-taka note. The Mughal era left Lalbagh Fort, begun in 1678 by Prince Azam Shah, a son of Aurangzeb, and abandoned by Shaista Khan after the death of his daughter Pari Bibi, whose tomb stands at its centre. The national mosque, Baitul Mukarram, was built between new and old Dhaka on the site of the filled-in Paltan pond. Work began on 27 January 1960, the first Friday prayers were held on 25 January 1963, and the building was completed in 1968. Like Islamabad's national mosque, it has no dome, and it can hold more than 42,000 worshippers.
Trade on the Buriganga: Muslin, Jute and Garments
Dhaka's wealth came off the river. Its Mughal-era fame rested on muslin, a handwoven cotton so fine it was called "woven air", spun from a local cotton plant with 800 to 1,200 threads per inch against 40 to 80 for ordinary muslin. Merchants in Central Asia simply called the cloth "Daka". Bengal supplied 40 per cent of Dutch imports from Asia, and Armenians, Portuguese, French, Greeks and Marwaris settled in the city to trade. Visiting merchants lodged in caravanserais such as the Bara Katra, which also served as a residence for Mughal governors including Prince Shah Shuja, a son of Shah Jahan, and the region's shipyards supplied the Mughal navy. Their presence survives in Old Dhaka's neighbourhood names: Farashganj, the French bazaar; Armanitola, the Armenian quarter; and Postogola, the Portuguese quarter.
The trade collapsed under British rule. A 75 per cent tax on cotton exports and cheap machine-made British cloth ruined the weavers, and Dhaka shrank as Calcutta rose; in 1824 an Anglican bishop called it a "city of magnificent ruins". Jute brought a partial revival in the 19th century, and the Nawabs of Dhaka built their palace, Ahsan Manzil, on the riverbank at Kumartoli, on land a French trading house had once held.
The British also remade the waterfront itself. A riverside embankment had existed since Mughal times, and in 1864 the commissioner of Dhaka, Charles Thomas Buckland, began building a metalled road along it, raising the money from wealthy residents such as Khwaja Abdul Ghani. The result, the Buckland Bund, ran for almost a mile from Farashganj to Babu Bazaar. It became the city's favourite place to walk and watch the river, benches were added for the crowds, and zamindars built mansions along it.
The Buriganga is still the city's front door. The Port of Dhaka, centred on the Sadarghat terminal, is the busiest port in Bangladesh by passenger traffic, with launches leaving for most of the country's districts; together with Barisal, Chandpur and Narayanganj it handled 22 million passengers in 2013–14. The modern economy has moved inland. The city accounts for about 35 per cent of the national economy, the Dhaka Stock Exchange, incorporated on 28 April 1954, lists more than 750 companies, and about 800,000 people work in textiles, a distant successor to the muslin looms.
Daily Life by Rickshaw, from Old Dhaka to Shahbag
For most residents the city is experienced at street level, and very often from a rickshaw. The cycle rickshaw came from Kolkata; European jute exporters first imported it to Narayanganj and Mymensingh in 1938, and Dhaka was the third Bangladeshi city to adopt it. Today rickshaw drivers alone number as many as 400,000. From the early 1950s painters began decorating the vehicles with scenes from films and portraits of actors copied from cinema posters. UNESCO has listed Dhaka's rickshaws and rickshaw painting as intangible cultural heritage.
The pressure behind those numbers is growth. Rural migration accounted for about 60 per cent of the city's growth in the 1960s and 1970s, and the city's population doubled from 6 million to 12 million between 1990 and 2005. About 30 per cent of residents lived in slums or unplanned settlements in 2016. Rail travellers arrive at Kamalapur, the country's largest railway station, designed by the American architects Daniel Dunham and Robert Boughey and opened on 1 May 1968. Bengali is the language of the streets, and Dhaka is the largest Bengali-speaking city in the world. The city proper covers only about 270 square kilometres of flat, low land, which also leaves it exposed to monsoon flooding; our guide to Bangladesh's geography explains the delta setting.
The calendar gives the city its shared moments. On Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year on 14 April, crowds fill Shahbag, Ramna Park and the University of Dhaka campus, and a dawn procession organised by the university's Faculty of Fine Arts was inscribed by UNESCO in 2016. On Pahela Falgun, the first day of spring, women wear yellow saris. All through February the Bangla Academy runs the Ekushey Book Fair in memory of the 1952 martyrs. Food is part of the identity too, above all the kacchi biryani and street food for which the city is known. For how Dhaka compares with Chittagong, Khulna and the rest, see our ranking of the largest cities in Bangladesh.
Quick Facts About Dhaka
- Country: Bangladesh
- Continent: Asia (South Asia)
- Country population: approximately 177.8 million
- Capital city status: Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh, the seat of national government, and the location of foreign embassies, parliament, and the head of state's official residence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the capital of Bangladesh?
The capital of Bangladesh is Dhaka. Dhaka is the seat of national government, hosts most foreign embassies and consulates, and is typically where the head of state and parliament are located.
What continent is Dhaka in?
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is located in Asia, in the South Asia region. As Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka serves as the country's primary connection to the broader Asian political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Dhaka the capital of Bangladesh?
Dhaka was chosen as the capital of Bangladesh for reasons that typically combine geography, history, and politics. Capital city selections often reflect a desire for centrality (being accessible from across the country), historical importance (being a longstanding seat of government or culture), or neutrality (being acceptable to multiple regions or ethnic groups within the country). The specific reasons for Dhaka's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Dhaka known for?
As the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka is best known for housing the country's central government institutions — parliament, presidential or royal residences, supreme court, and key ministries. It is also typically a major cultural and economic center within Bangladesh, hosting national museums, embassies, and signature monuments. The introduction and history sections above provide detailed coverage of the city's specific notable institutions and landmarks.
Related Pages
- Bangladesh Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Bangladesh — meaning, history, and design of Bangladesh's national flag