Demographics of Bangladesh - Ethnic Groups

Ethnic Groups

The vast majority (about 98.5%) of Bangladeshis, as the nation's name would imply, hail from the Bengali ethno-linguistic group. This group also spans the neighboring Indian province of West Bengal. Minority ethnic groups include Meitei, Khasi, Santhals, Chakma, Garo (tribe), Biharis, Oraons, Mundas and Rohingyas.

Biharis are Urdu-speaking, non-Bengalis who emigrated from the state of Bihar and other parts of northern India during the 1947 partition. They are concentrated in the Dhaka and Rangpur areas and number some 300,000. In the 1971 independence war many of them sided with Pakistan, as they stood to lose their positions in the upper levels of society. Hundreds of thousands went to Pakistan and those that remained were interned in refugee camps. Their population declined from about 1 million in 1971 to 600,000 in the late 1980s. Refugees International has called them a "neglected and stateless" people as they are denied citizenship by the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan. As nearly 40 years has passed, two generations of Biharis have been born in these camps. Biharis were granted Bangladeshi citizenhip and voting rights in 2008.

Bangladesh's tribal population was enumerated at 897,828 in the 1981 census. These tribes are concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and around Mymensingh, Sylhet, and Rajshahi. They are of Sino-Tibetan descent and differ markedly in their social customs, religion, language and level of development. They speak Tibeto-Burman languages and most are Buddhist or Hindu. The four largest tribes are Chakmas, Marmas, Tipperas and Mros. Smaller groups include the Santals in Rajshahi and Dinajpur, and Khasis, Garos, and Khajons in Mymensingh and Sylhet regions.

There are small communities of Meitei people in the Sylhet district, which is close to the Meitei homeland across the border in Manipur, India.

There is a small population of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar near the border in the southeast. There are 28,000 living in two UN refugee camps in Cox's Bazaar as well as some 200,000 "unregistered people of concern" living outside of the camps. The refugee crisis originated in the early 1990s when the first wave numbering some 250,000 of the predominantly Muslim ethnic group fled persecution from their home in Rakhaine—Myanmar's western-most state. Bangladesh seeks to repatriate the refugees back to Myanmar.