60 free Bangladesh trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bangladesh packs 176 million people into a country smaller than Florida, most of it a river delta barely above sea level. It has the world's largest mangrove forest, the world's longest natural sea beach, the deadliest cyclone ever recorded and a national anthem written by a Nobel laureate. Its language movement gave the world International Mother Language Day, and its garment factories dress much of the planet. This quiz moves through geography (which three great rivers build the delta?), history (Plassey, Partition, the 1952 language martyrs, the nine-month war of 1971), national symbols (why is the red disc on the flag off-centre?), culture and food (jamdani, hilsa, panta bhat, Pohela Boishakh) and sport (kabaddi versus cricket, and Bangladesh's famous World Cup upsets). It runs from easy questions anyone can get to hard ones for people who know the region. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and other reference pages before publishing.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh?
Dhaka
Its metro area of over 36 million people is often called the most densely populated urban area on Earth.
Q 02Bangladesh shares its only land borders with India and which other country?
Myanmar
It is otherwise almost entirely surrounded by India, and lies within a few dozen kilometres of Nepal, Bhutan and China.
Q 03With almost 176 million people, Bangladesh ranks where among the world's most populous countries?
Eighth
All of them live in an area smaller than the US state of Florida.
Q 04Before its independence in 1971, what was Bangladesh known as?
East Pakistan
It was separated from the western wing of the same country by more than 1,000 miles of Indian territory.
Q 05Bangladesh celebrates Victory Day on which date, marking the surrender that ended the 1971 war?
16 December
The Dhaka surrender remains the largest capitulation of armed personnel since World War II.
Q 06Why is the red disc on Bangladesh's flag placed slightly off-centre toward the hoist?
So it looks centred when fluttering
The 1971 wartime version did carry a yellow map of the country inside the disc; it was removed in 1972.
Q 07Which Nobel laureate wrote "Amar Sonar Bangla", the national anthem of Bangladesh?
Rabindranath Tagore
He is the only person to have written the anthems of two countries, since he also wrote India's.
Q 08Which is the national sport of Bangladesh, even though cricket is far more popular?
Kabaddi
Known locally as ha-du-du, it received official status in 1972, the year after independence.
Q 09Which fish is the national fish of Bangladesh, with 97% of the world's supply caught there?
Hilsa (ilish)
It is a herring relative, usually eaten with mustard, and was granted Geographical Indication status in 2017.
Q 10Which flower is the national flower of Bangladesh (and also of Sri Lanka)?
Water lily (shapla)
It grows wild across the country's ponds and flooded fields during the monsoon.
Q 11Which is the national animal of Bangladesh?
Bengal tiger
Tigers in the mangrove delta are the smallest on record; adult females there weigh only 75-80 kg.
Q 12The oriental magpie-robin, known locally as the doyel, is Bangladesh's national what?
Bird
A doyel monument stands in Dhaka near the university, and the bird appears on the two-taka coin.
Q 13Bangladesh contains most of which forest, the largest mangrove forest in the world?
The Sundarbans
Its Bangladeshi part is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to tigers, saltwater crocodiles and fishing cats.
Q 21UNESCO adopted 21 February, the day Bangladesh honours its 1952 martyrs, as what worldwide observance in 1999?
International Mother Language Day
The decision came in November 1999 in tribute to ethnolinguistic rights everywhere.
Q 22Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's founding leader, is honoured with which title meaning "Friend of Bengal"?
Bangabandhu
He was assassinated with most of his family in a 1975 coup; his daughter Sheikh Hasina later became the longest-serving prime minister.
Q 23Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's 7 March 1971 speech is listed on which UNESCO register?
Memory of the World
Q 14Bangladesh has how many trans-boundary rivers, the most of any nation-state?
Over 57
Nearly all of them enter from India, which makes water sharing a permanent political headache.
Q 15Which three great rivers meet to form the delta that makes up most of Bangladesh?
Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna
The Ganges is called the Padma once it enters Bangladesh, and the Brahmaputra's main channel is the Jamuna.
Q 16Most of Bangladesh lies less than how far above sea level?
12 metres
A one-metre rise in sea level would flood roughly a tenth of the country.
Q 17Bangladesh has never recorded an air temperature below what?
0 °C
The record low is 1.1 °C at Dinajpur in 1905; the country straddles the Tropic of Cancer.
Q 18Cox's Bazar Beach, at about 120 km, is the longest natural sea beach on which continent?
Asia
Worldwide it ranks fifth, behind beaches in Brazil, Texas and two in Australia.
Q 19Which 1970 storm, the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, killed up to half a million in the Ganges Delta?
Bhola
Anger at the slow relief effort from the central government fed the independence movement the following year.
Q 20Language Movement Day remembers students killed in 1952 for demanding Bengali instead of which language?
Urdu
Police fired on student demonstrators at Dhaka University on that day in 1952.
It rallied Bengalis toward independence weeks before Operation Searchlight.
Q 24Which 1757 battle began British colonial rule over Bengal?
Plassey
The Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah was defeated by the East India Company under Robert Clive.
Q 25Under the Mughals, Bengal was famous worldwide as a producer of which luxury cotton fabric?
Muslin
Dhaka's muslin was so fine it was nicknamed "woven air"; the industry collapsed under British rule.
Q 26Jamdani, the fine cotton textile woven near Dhaka, was recognised by UNESCO in 2013 as what?
Intangible Cultural Heritage
It is still known as Dhakai after the city, and woven by hand on the banks of the Shitalakshya River.
Q 27Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering what?
Microcredit
His lending experiment began in 1976 in the village of Jobra; he later led Bangladesh's interim government in 2024.
Q 28Which bank, founded by Muhammad Yunus, shared his 2006 Nobel Peace Prize?
Grameen
It lends tiny sums without collateral, mostly to rural women, and inspired copies in about 100 countries.
Q 29Which American architect designed Bangladesh's national parliament building in Dhaka?
Louis Kahn
It was commissioned for the Pakistani parliament in the 1960s and finished in 1982, eight years after Kahn's death.
Q 30Bangladesh's Sixty Dome Mosque in Bagerhat, a World Heritage Site, actually has how many domes?
81
The name refers to its sixty stone columns; it was built by the saint-general Khan Jahan Ali in the 15th century.