12 ATLASES

History of Bangladesh in maps

Bangladesh as it appears in 12 interactive history atlases, from 1206 to 1991: Bengal, East Bengal / East Pakistan, Bengal, British India, Bangladesh, East Pakistan. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

Open this map in the interactive atlas →

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Map of China in October 1964, showing Bangladesh — MAP OF CHINA IN OCTOBER 1964

These maps are reconstructed from published sources · Cliopatria v0.2.1 — dated political boundaries · United Nations Command — 1951–1953 armistice negotiations · Natural Earth — physical reference geography · Natural Earth 10m — provincial study-region reference · Government of India — notes exchanged with China, White Paper VIII, 1962 · Natural Earth 10m island components; FRUS 1955 evacuation chronology · Barry Naughton — The Third Front: Defence Industrialization in the Chinese Interior, 1988 · Man Xu — regional scope of Third Front development, thesis figure 4-5

Source details

Cliopatria contributors / Seshat Global History Databank. CC BY4.0 · Dated polity and constituent territory selections; campaign-dependent occupation overlays reconstructed separately.
United Nations Command — 1951–1953 armistice negotiations. Historical facts consulted; original prose and artwork not republished
Natural Earth. Public domain
Natural Earth 10m — provincial study-region reference. Public domain
Government of India — notes exchanged with China, White Paper VIII, 1962. Historical facts consulted; original prose and artwork not republished
Natural Earth 10m island components; FRUS 1955 evacuation chronology. Natural Earth public domain; historical facts consulted
Barry Naughton — The Third Front: Defence Industrialization in the Chinese Interior, 1988. Historical facts consulted; original prose and artwork not republished
Man Xu — regional scope of Third Front development, thesis figure 4-5. Historical facts consulted; original prose and artwork not republished

Provincial colors show standardized Natural Earth study regions, with Hainan included in Guangdong and Chongqing in Sichuan. External boundaries follow dated historical sources; the map does not claim to show changes in internal provincial administrations.

proxy: 1964.8 · proxy: 1964–1971 · reconstruction: 1963 source boundary reference after withdrawal · reconstruction: 1964.8 · vector: 1953-07-27 · vector: 1964.8

Layer records and reconstruction methods

What was Bangladesh before it was Bangladesh? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.

Bengal (mod. Bangladesh) · Mongol Empire

1206	Other settled powers (Jin China, Christendom, Delhi) — the opening position

MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Bengal (mod. Bangladesh) · Industrial Revolution

Bengal was the textile capital of the eighteenth-century world, renowned for the muslins of Dhaka. The East India Company, which ruled Bengal from 1757, pressed weavers into Company contracts. Machine-made British cloth then took their markets, and Dhaka’s population fell by perhaps two-thirds in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Later, Bengal grew the jute that Calcutta’s mills spun into the world’s sacks.

c. 1806	Colony or dependency — the opening position
c. 1806	Colony or dependency

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Bangladesh · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia

MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

East Bengal / East Pakistan (mod. Bangladesh) · Indian independence

East Bengal was Curzon’s province in 1905 and a heartland of the League, which was founded at Dacca in 1906. The famine of 1943 made it a killing ground. From 1947 it became Pakistan’s eastern wing: most of the new state’s people lived there, but little of its power lay there. Language soon became a grievance, and the Language Movement’s martyrs fell in Dacca in 1952. The atlas ends with East Bengal blue. In 1971, at terrible cost, the wing became Bangladesh—Curzon’s line of 1905 made a nation on the third attempt.