page_title: Geography of Bangladesh
section_title: River systems
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of Bangladesh / River systems
caption_attribution_description: English: goalundo
context_page_description: Bangladesh is a densely-populated, low-lying, mainly riverine country located in South Asia with a coastline of 580 km on the northern littoral of the Bay of Bengal. The delta plain of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna Rivers and their tributaries occupy 79 percent of the country. Four uplifted blocks occupy 9 percent, and steep hill ranges up to approximately 1,000 metres high occupy 12 percent in the southeast and in the northeast. Straddling the Tropic of Cancer, Bangladesh has a tropical monsoon climate characterised by heavy seasonal rainfall, high temperatures, and high humidity. Natural disasters such as floods and cyclones accompanied by storm surges periodically affect the country. Most of the country is intensively farmed, with rice the main crop, grown in three seasons. Rapid urbanisation is taking place with associated industrial and commercial development. Exports of garments and shrimp plus remittances from Bangladeshis working abroad provide the country's three main sources of foreign exchange income.
context_section_description: The rivers of Bangladesh mark both the physiography of the nation and the life of the people. About 700 in number, these rivers generally flow south. The larger rivers serve as the main source of water for cultivation and as the principal arteries of commercial transportation. Rivers also provide fish, an important source of protein. Flooding of the rivers during the monsoon season causes enormous hardship and hinders development, but fresh deposits of rich silt replenish the fertile but overworked soil. The rivers also drain excess monsoon rainfall into the Bay of Bengal. Thus, the great river system is at the same time the country's principal resource and its greatest hazard.
  The profusion of rivers can be divided into five major networks. The Jamuna-Brahmaputra is 292 kilometres (181 mi) long and extends from northern Bangladesh to its confluence with the Padma. Originating as the Yarlung Tsangpo River in China's Xizang Autonomous Region (Tibet) and flowing through India's state of Arunachal Pradesh, where it becomes known as the Brahmaputra ("Son of Brahma"), it receives waters from five major tributaries that total some 740 kilometres (460 mi) in length. At the point where the Brahmaputra meets the Tista River in Bangladesh, it becomes known as the Jamuna. The Jamuna is notorious for its shifting subchannels and for the formation of fertile silt islands (chars). No permanent settlements can exist along its banks.
  The second system is the Padma-Ganges, which is divided into two sections: a 258 kilometres (160 mi) segment, the Ganges, which extends from the western border with India to its confluence with the Jamuna some 72 kilometres (45 mi) west of Dhaka, and a 126 kilometres (78 mi) segment, the Padma, which runs from the Ganges-Jamuna confluence to where it joins the Meghna River at Chandpur. The Padma-Ganges is the central part of a deltaic river system with hundreds of rivers and streams—some 2,100 kilometres (1,300 mi) in length—flowing generally east or west into the Padma.
  The third network is the Surma-Meghna River System, which courses from the northeastern border with India to Chandpur, where it joins the Padma. The Surma-Meghna, at 669 kilometres (416 mi) by itself the longest river in Bangladesh, is formed by the union of six lesser rivers. Below the city of Kalipur it is known as the Meghna. When the Padma and Meghna join together, they form the fourth river system—the Padma-Meghna—which flows 145 kilometres (90 mi) to the Bay of Bengal.
  This mighty network of four river systems flowing through the Bangladesh Plain drains an area of some 1.5 million square kilometres (580,000 sq mi). The numerous channels of the Padma-Meghna, its distributaries, and smaller parallel rivers that flow into the Bay of Bengal are referred to as the Mouths of the Ganges. Like the Jamuna, the Padma-Meghna and other estuaries on the Bay of Bengal are also known for their many chars.
  A fifth river system, unconnected to the other four, is the Karnaphuli. Flowing through the region of Chittagong and the Chittagong Hills, it cuts across the hills and runs rapidly downhill to the west and southwest and then to the sea. The Feni, Karnaphuli, Sangu, and Matamuhari—an aggregate of some 420 kilometres (260 mi)—are the main rivers in the region. The port of Chittagong is situated on the banks of the Karnaphuli. The Karnaphuli Reservoir and Karnaphuli Dam are located in this area. The dam impounds the Karnaphuli River's waters in the reservoir for the generation of hydroelectric power.
  The Ganga–Brahmaputra rivers contribute nearly 1000 million tons/yr of sediment. The sediment contributed from these two rivers forms the Bengal Delta and Submarine fan, a vast structure that extends from Bangladesh to south of the Equator which is up to 16.5 km thick, and contains at least 1130 trillion tonnes of sediment accumulating over the last 17 million years at an average rate of 665 million tons/yr. The Bay of Bengal used to be deeper than the Mariana Trench, the present deepest ocean point.
  During the annual monsoon period, the rivers of Banglad
caption: Goalundo Ghat in central Bangladesh
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