BANGLADESH ISLAMI UNIVERSITY ASSIGNMENT TOPIC: Draw the of Bangladesh marking its neighboring regions and its distribution of land and rivers. River Length Length Drainage Outflow Countries in the Bangladesh district in (km) (miles) area (km²) drainage basin the drainage basin Ganga River 2,525 1,569 1,080,000 Bay of Bengal India, Rajshahi Bangladesh Padma River 120 75 NA Bay of Bengal Bangladesh Kushtia, Pabna, Rajshahi Meghna River 264 164 82,000 Bay of Bengal Bangladesh Chandpur Brahmaputra 2,900 1,800 651,334 Bay of Bengal India, Dhaka River Bangladesh, China Jamuna Rive 250 155 47,000 Joins Padma Bangladesh Mymensingh, Pabna, River Tangail Teesta River 309 192 12,540 Brahmaputra India, Rangpur River Bangladesh Karnaphuli 270 170 2,500 Bay of Bengal Bangladesh Chittagong River Surma River 900 540 NA Meghna River India, Kishoreganj Bangladesh Mahananda 360 224 20,600 Ganges River India, ChapaiNawabganj River Bangladesh Atrai River 390 240 NA ChalanBeel Bangladesh Dinajpur Ganges River বা廬লা Ganges River one of the largest river systems of the world and an important RIVER flowing through India and Bangladesh. The term 'Ganges' is a corrupt form, used by a Greek historian, of the Sanskrit name 'Ganga' by which the river is popularly known throughout the sub-continent. Its drainage basin covers one of the most thickly populated regions of the world, a region where the Indo-Aryan civilisation has flourished for many centuries. It comprises the Ganges and many important affluents, such as the Jamuna, Kali, Karnali, Ramganga, Gandak and the Kosi, all of which rise in the himalayas and are mainly snow-fed. The Ganges proper is formed of two tributaries - the Bhagirathi and the Alakananda. The Ganges rises near the Tibet-Indian border. The Bhagirathi is accepted traditionally as the original Ganges, although the Alakananda is the larger river. The actual source of the former is Gangotri glacier at an altitude of about 3,900m in the Himalayas. The Gangotri shrine is a few kilometres downstream from Gaumukh. The Bhagirathi joins its western tributary the Jahnavi, a little away to the north of the main Himalayan range and about 11 km below the Gangotri temple. The combined river then cuts through the main Himalayan range through a magnificent gorge in which the riverbed is 3,960m below the peaks on either side. The river flows in a southeasterly direction across India and crosses the western border of Bangladesh in NAWABGANJ district. Inside the country, flowing almost in the same direction it meets the JAMUNA (the BRAHMAPUTRA) at goalondaghat and then further down meets the Meghna at chandpur. From the confluence with the Jamuna to the confluence with the Meghna the river is named PADMA. The entire course of the Ganges inside Bangladesh is popularly called the Padma, though actually it is not. The Ganges has a total length of about 2,600 km up to its confluence with the Jamuna and a catchment area of about 10,87,400 sq km of which about 46,300 sq km lies within Bangladesh. In Bangladesh it has only one tributary, the MAHANANDA, while it has a good number of distributaries such as the ICHAMATI, NABAGANGA, BHAIRAB, KUMAR, goari MADHUMATI, and ARIAL KHAN. The Ganges is the major hydrodynamic system that formed the world's largest DELTA that occupies a major portion of Bangladesh and a greater part of WEST BENGAL in India. In the long history of development of the Ganges Delta, the river shifted southeast and has reached its present position in the Bengal low land. The hydrology and drainage systems of the Ganges Delta in the southwestern part of Bangladesh are intimately related to the mighty Ganges and the fluvio-hydrological setting of the Bengal Basin. The Ganges and its numerous tributaries and distributaries have long been playing an important role in the development of the delta. The deltaic estuaries of the Ganges- Padma-Meghna system drain the combined discharges of these rivers amounting to an average of 35,000 cumec. However, during the MONSOON the discharge of Ganges rises to 76,000 cumec with a corresponding increase in its SEDIMENT load. The low-level discharge of the river is of the order of 15,000 cumec, and naturally very little sediment is borne by the river during this period. In the deltaic portion the river-width ranges from 1.6 to 8 km and sometimes it shows a braided character though it is a meandering CHANNEL. The delta of the Ganges begins near Gaur, a famous historic city. The present main branch of the river flows in a southeasterly direction and is called the Padma in Bangladesh. A few centuries ago the main channel of the Ganges in the Bengal plain was the Hugly together with its feeders the Bhagirathi, Jalangi and Mathabhanga, called the Nadia rivers in West Bengal. [Kazi Matinuddin Ahmed] Padma River বা廬লা Padma River the downstream of the GANGES, more precisely, the combined flow of the Ganges and the JAMUNA after their confluence at GOALANDAGHAT. In Bangladesh the Ganges is popularly known as the Padma from its point of entrance at Manakosa and Durlabhpur unions of SHIBGANJ upazila, NAWABGANJ district. This name (Padma or Podda) is sometimes applied to the Ganges as far up as the point at which the Bhagirathi leaves its rightbank, and according to the Hindus, it takes the sanctity of the Ganges with it. It is hydrographically more correct to use the name Ganges to refer to the river up to its confluence with the Jamuna (BRAHMAPUTRA), and the downstream after the confluence as the Padma. The Padma is also sometimes wrongly referred to as the Ganges. The river between Aricha and Sureshwar (Chandpur) is therefore best called Padma. The Padma is 120 kilometres long and from 4 to 8 km wide. The very important Goalandaghat- Chandpur steamer route is mostly on this river. Near Tepakhola, 14 km from Goalandaghat, the small Faridpur Khal distributary takes off from the rightbank. Fifty kilometres further down the ARIAL KHANtakes off from the rightbank. Fourteen kilometres further downstream the Lohajang river falls into it at LOHAJANG upazila on the leftbank, and the Kristanagar river branches off from the opposite side. A few kilometres from Lohajang, the Shosha Khal and the Naria Khal take off from the The Meghna receives the OLD BRAHMAPUTRA on its right at Bhairab Bazar. A little above the confluence, the Meghna has a railway bridge-'Bhairab Bridge'-and a road bridge-'Bangladesh-UK- Friendship Bridge' over it. The width of the river there is three-quarters of a kilometre. Several small channels branching off from the Meghna and meandering through the lowland bordering the Tippera Surface receive the flow of a number of hilly streams and rejoin the main river downstream. The most important of these offshoots is the TITAS, which takes off south of Ghatalpar and after meandering through two long-bends extending over 240 km rejoins the Meghna through two channels in Nabinagar upazila. Other offshoots of the Meghna are the Pagli, Kathalia, Dhonagoda, Matlab and Udhamdi. The Meghna and these offshoots receive water of a number of hilly streams from the Tripura Hills. The important hill streams are the GUMTI, Kakrai, Kagni, DAKATIA, Hawrah, Sonaiburi, Harimangal, Pagli, Kurulia, Balujuri, Sonaichhari, Handachora, Jangalia and. All of these are liable to flash floods. The Gumti, Kakrai and Hawrah are the most destructive rivers. They have silted their beds to the extent that they now flow above the mean level of the land when brimful. Numbers of EMBANKMENTS have been built to contain them. But every other year one or the other of these streams overflows and causes considerable damage to crops, livestock and homestead. The Meghna receives Tippera Surface streams from the east and flows from the enlarged Dhaleshwari from the west. At the confluence, just north of Shatnol, the Meghna is about five kilometres wide. Dhaleshwari comes down in a brown stream and meets the clear blue-green Meghna. For many kilometres the waters do not seem to mix, for half the river water remains brown and the other half blue-green. The boatmen are fond of pointing out this peculiarity. Sixteen kilometres from Shatnol, the combined flow of the Ganges and Brahmaputra-Jamuna, known as the PADMA, meets the Meghna at a 11 km wide confluence in the rainy season near Chandpur. From this point southwards the Meghna is marked as the Lower Meghna, becoming one of the broadest rivers and largest estuaries in the world. Lower Meghna is the combined stream of the Padma and the Meghna (Upper Meghna), reinforced by the Dhaleshwari. All the three rivers are large. The Dhaleshwari-Meghna and the Padma are each 5 km wide at the confluence. The Lower Meghna has several small CHARS (braid-bars) in it, which create two main channels, of which the large eastern one is 5 to 8 km wide. The western channel is about 2 km in width. Near Muladi the 1.5 km wide Safipur river is an offshoot from the right-bank. Further south, the Lower Meghna shifts into three channels: west to east flowing TENTULIA(Ilsha) river, the Shahbazpur and the Bamni. The Ilsha is a 5 to 6.5 km wide channel separating Bhola Island from the Barisal mainland. West of the mouth of the Ilsha is the Rabnabad islands. Shahbazpur Channel, 5 to 8 km wide, separates Bhola from Ramgati and Hatiya islands and at its mouth are the Manpura islands. Bamni now is said to be nonexistent. previously it used to flow between the islands of Ramgati and Char Lakshmi and the Noakhali mainland, and was at times the main outlet for Meghna.