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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 17 September 2008 00:05 |
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Coordinator.
Welcome to the BangladeshGenWeb Project. This website
was designed to assist
researchers in their quest for their ancestry in Bangladesh.
History of Bangladesh
Remnants of civilization in the greater Bengal
region date back four thousand years,[2][3] when the region was settled
by Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, and Austro-Asiatic peoples. The exact
origin of the word "Bangla" or "Bengal" is unknown, though it is
believed to be derived from Bang, the Dravidian-speaking tribe that
settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE.
After the
arrival of Indo-Aryans, the kingdom of Gangaridai was formed from at
least the seventh century BCE, which later united with Bihar under the
Magadha and Maurya Empires. Bengal was later part of the Gupta Empire
from the third to the sixth centuries CE. Following its collapse, a
dynamic Bengali named Shashanka founded an impressive yet short-lived
kingdom. After a period of anarchy, the Buddhist Pala dynasty ruled the
region for four hundred years, followed by a shorter reign of the Hindu
Sena dynasty. Islam was introduced to Bengal in the twelfth century by
Sufi missionaries, and subsequent Muslim conquests helped spread Islam
throughout the region. Bakhtiar Khilji, a Turkish general, defeated
Lakshman Sen of the Sena dynasty and conquered large parts of Bengal.
The region was ruled by dynasties of Sultans and feudal lords for the
next few hundred years. By the sixteenth century, the Mughal Empire
controlled Bengal, and Dhaka became an important provincial center of
Mughal administration.
European traders arrived late in the fifteenth century, and their
influence grew until the British East India Company gained control of
Bengal following the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The bloody rebellion of
1857, known as the Sepoy Mutiny, resulted in transfer of authority to
the crown, with a British viceroy running the administration. During
colonial rule, famine racked the Indian subcontinent many times,
including the Great Bengal famine of 1943 that claimed 3 million lives.
Between 1905 and 1911, an abortive attempt was made to divide the
province of Bengal into two zones, with Dhaka being the capital of the
eastern zone. When India was partitioned in 1947, Bengal was
partitioned along religious lines, with the western part going to India
and the eastern part joining Pakistan as a province called East Bengal
(later renamed East Pakistan), with its capital at Dhaka. It achieved
indepence in 1971.
Source: Wikipedia
The Provinces
Bangladesh is divided into six administrative
divisions, each named after their respective divisional headquarters:
Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, Rajshahi, and Sylhet.
Divisions are subdivided into districts (zila). There are 64 districts
in Bangladesh, each further subdivided into upazila (subdistricts) or
thana ("police stations").
Bulletin Boards and Surname Resource Pages
Submit
and View Queries and Surnames Submit a Query or Surnames for
your lost Bangladesh ancestor.
Mailing List(s)
BANGLADESH-L
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Resources
Asiaco - Asia related search tool.
Bangladesh
National Archives
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AsiaGenWeb
