Oh, sorry. I'm just headbanging to Bangladesh!!!
It's time to learn Geography NOW!!!
Hey, Peebs. I'm your host, Paul Barbado.
Insert intro thing because I didn't write anything.
Let's dissect the flag.
Now, you have probably have seen this flag before and thought who dipped the flag of Japan in the top of algae.
Well, it's not some green mutated version of Japan's flag.
It's Bangladesh's!!!
Essentially, the flag has a green field and red circle that is not in the centre,
but a little bit offset closer to the hoist side
and the reason for this is to look centered when the flag is waving in the air.
Green represents the lush, fertile, green interior of the land of Bangladesh
and the red represents the Sun.
SIMPLE!!! MOVING ON!!!
Now, this is going to be really fun because
Bangladesh has some of the most confusing territories on the planet.
First of all, the country is located in Asia.
East of India and almost completely surrounded by India
including that narrow, little Siliguri Corridor
or the chicken's neck of India.
A small, but reasonably sized border with Myanmar in the southeast
and the Bay of Bengal located to the south.
The capital and largest city is Dhaka
located in the lower - central region right above the Padma River
and the Ganges delta.
Now, here at Geography Now, one thing we love are enclaves and exclaves
because they are delightfully confusing
and it is with great honour that I present to you
the country with the second most enclaves in the entire world, Bangladesh, right after India.
When you hit the north of Bangladesh in the Rangpur region,
all hell break lose and suddenly you see this huge mess of territories
that are sprinkled around the entire border owned and marked by each side.
It get especially messy when you go to the north of the Teesta River
by the Bengali town of Patgram
and see a small group of over 60 enclaves and exclaves
scattered in a weird, random order that makes no sense.
Many of these enclaves are 1st order and 2nd order enclaves
that's enclaves inside of enclaves
and the world's only 3rd order enclave, Dahala Khagrabari - 51.
A small crop field barely the size of two acres.
This land is a piece of India within Bangladesh within India within Bangladesh.
Talk about inception or Inception ( movie ).
The Dahala Khagrabari - 51 is actually owned by a Bengali farmer
who lives on the Bengali side even though the land kind of belongs to India.
Most of these enclaves are farmlands that were owned by families
mixed in with the area long before the borders were drawn up by the British
which is why some areas don't relict their property to the other country.
The Indian and Bangladeshi governments have announced their intention
to resolve the issue by swapping 162 enclaves
by giving their residents a choice of nationality.
However, the process isn't really moving
and it is kind of stuck in a red tape limbo.
As we'll soon find out, Bangladesh's land is shaped heavily by the landscape and the immense river systems that flow through the entire country
like vital blood streams fostering life to the entire region
and by soon, I mean like right now.
Last time we learned about Bahrain and found out that some countries have a problem getting water.
Well, Bangladesh kind of has the complete opposite problem
and they have too much water.
One thing you have to understand is that
Bangladesh's largest resource is their rivers. In fact,
the Bengal delta is the largest delta in the world
and the country has more trans - boundary rivers than anywhere else at 58.
This means that they share rivers with both India and Myanmar
All together though, Bangladesh has about 700 main rivers. The largest ones being the Padma or better known as the Ganges in India
and the Jamuna or the Brahmaputra.
This is actually pretty impressive considering that Bangladesh is only about half the size of the U.K.
Now, because of all the rivers and the silk deposits,
natural irrigation and land cultivation is amazing.
Bangladesh is an ecological gem.
In fact, some of the most fertile soil in the world is found in Bangladesh
allowing them to grow thousands upon thousands of different crops, plants and orchards.
One thing they are specially known for growing is jute.
Actually, I had no idea what jute was prior to making this video
and then, I found out it's actually the stuff they use to make ropes and burlap.
See, I'm just like one of you. I'm learning.
Bangladesh is generally split up into two different separate regions.
The low - lying flat delta where most of the land is only at ten metres or less above sea level
and the small hilly plains mostly in the north, northeast and southeast by Chittagong.
Speaking of Chittagong, Bangladesh has the world's longest uninterrupted beach in the world,
Cox's Bazar.
This place goes on and on for 75 - ish miles.
However, Bengalis would kind of perfer if you didn't check out the north part by Bhatiari
because it kind of looks a little trashy.
It's a huge ship graveyard where companies all over the world like to dispose of their old ships
where the people of the region can break apart and sell the pieces for profit.
Now, Bangladesh is off course blessed with fertility.
Often villages are buried underneath mango and coconut and jackfruit trees and beautiful forests with an abundance of flora and fauna
such as the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest
which is kind of like the last place where you can find the Bengali tiger.
However, there is a problem.
Bangladesh is kind of subject to terrible, terrible tropical storms almost every year
and sometimes even tornadoes.
On top of that, during annual monsoon season,
the rivers get so swollen, that 2/3 of Bangladesh's 64 districts
typically experience flooding that causes extensive property damage, loss of communication, loss of drinking water, loss of crops and leads to the spread of disease
which eventually leads to death.
It's kind of crazy though because for such an environmentally rich area, the country has to deal with almost equally damaging environmental challenges.
Now, add on top of that, the fact that Bangladesh is incredibly dense in population, let's talk about that.
Bangladesh's people have a very unique story
in that they kind of had to - how can I put this - they had to fight two rounds for two separate different independences.
One of them from the British and the other from Pakistan.
In the shortest, simplest way that I can put this without boring you
and with cute, little motion graphic animations so that you can pay attention and actually learn something,
Bangladesh was for a long time part of the British Empire.
However, after the British left, they separated the region into two states and three regions.
The predominantly Hindu state being India and the predominantly Muslim state being West Pakistan and East Pakistan
which is now known as modern - day Bangladesh.
West Pakistan administered East Pakistan
and the capital of the time was Karachi.
and it was also located in West Pakistan.
Despite the fact that both sides were Muslim, they had very little in common
both culturally and linguistically.
East Pakistan eventually became furious
because they felt as though they were being taken over by Pakistan
and especially angry when Pakistan tried to establish and institute Urdu as the official language
and almost nobody spoke it as everyone there spoke Bengali.
Wars, wars, fighting, fighting, yatta, yatta, they gained their independence in 1971 and joined the U.N.
DONE!!!
Once again let me remind you guys that this is Geography Now not History Now.
Now, as mentioned before,
Bangladesh is very dense in their population.
With a population of about 160 million people.
In fact, if you exclude the city - states like Singapore and Hong Kong.
Although, Hong Kong is technically under Chinese sovereignty,
Bangladesh is most densely populated country in the world and 8th most populous.
The country is predominantly Muslim
and about 86 percent being Sunni or Sufi Muslim
and about 12 percent are Hindu
and the remaining 2 percent being Christian and Buddhist.
Now, surprisingly, they all get along with each other pretty well,
but let's find out who else Bangladesh get along with.
Now, Bangladesh tries to maintain good ties with pretty much every country in the world
and doesn't really typically choose sides when it comes to major world powers.
Nepal is like a tactical friend of Bangladesh and it's mostly based on
strategic agreements.
Nepal does good business and Bangladesh gives them access to the ocean.
The Maldives likes to hire Bengali people for work
especially with their huge tourism sector.
About 40,000 Bengali workers live in the Maldives.
For Sri Lanka, the first king was said to have ancestors from Bangladesh
and the Bengali Buddhist community has sent Sri Lanka a gift from what are legendarily
a few strands of Buddhist hairs
and are worshipped objects on Poya Day, a Buddhist holiday in Sri Lanka.
Now, Myanmar has generally good relations with Bangladesh.
However, there is a little controversy over the Rohingya people.
A Muslim tribe living in the north part of Myanmar
that are being attacked and persecuted by radical extremists, Buddhists living in the area.
That's right. You heard me. Radical extremists, Buddhists. They do exist.
Because of this, the Rohingya people have been flocking to Bangladesh as refugees
which has been causing them more and more drama as an already over - populated and relatively poor country.
The U.S. was and still is the largest aid provider for Bangladesh
and is one of the top trade partners in tech - style.
One thing that Bangladesh is like really good at is making.
I mean have you seen the tags on the back of your shirts.
It might be just from Bangladesh.
However, Bangladesh is doing so well at developing their infrastructure
that they have decreased their aid dependency from 85 percent in 1988 to about 2 percent in 2010.
This is good for both countries.
For the U.K., yes, Bangladesh was part of the former British Empire
and even though they fought for independence and didn't liked the British rule,
the British culture still permeated the Bengali culture over the years
and it is very popular even today.
I mean their favourite sport is cricket, they drive on the left side of the road and English is the second most communally spoken language.
To this day, despite the historical attention, the two countries get along just fine and have strong diplomatic ties.
In terms of their best friends though, they more or less might consider Bhutan and India.
Bhutan, they only have two embassies in their entire country.
One for India and one for Bangladesh.
This is kind of huge as we'll soon find out in a future episode how incredibly isolated Bhutan is.
Bhutan was the second country to recognize Bangladesh as a state
and has decided they want to invest heavily in the country's business.
For India, it's funny because a predominantly Hindu country
defended a Muslim country from another Muslim country.
They were the first to recognize Bangladesh as a state
and supported them in the war against Pakistan.
However, afterwards, they kind of gotten into a few swapples themselves.
Apparently, they didn't realise that after drawing the borders, they had to share like a lot with Bangladesh.
Things started popping up like the enclaves disputes and the Ganges River irrigation drama
and complaints that too many Bengali people were living illegally in India.
However, in the end, they get along pretty well and they are always there to support each other.
In conclusion, Bangladesh is blessed and cursed in so many ways yet no matter what gets thrown in them,
they always stay afloat when the flood comes and when it dries up, they are ready to get right back up and plant those crops all over again.
Stay tuned. Barbados is coming up next!!!
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all the Patreons on Patreon that are helping me and supporting me out
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Especially, a huge thanks to Bryan Rowland. You are the V.I.P. Patreon.
So, thank you so much for that
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stay tuned, more Geography Now videos coming up. Thank you!!!