Discover the Beautiful Bay of Bengal

The beautiful Bay of Bengal forms the southern border of Bangladesh, and washes the shores of neighboring Myanmar and India, joining the vast Indian Ocean to the south. As the largest natural bay in the world, the triangular-shaped Bay of Bengal covers an area of around 2,172,000 square kilometers and includes numerous islands. Rivers of Bangladesh flowing into the Bay of Bengal include the Padma, a main tributary of the legendary Ganges; Meghna, one of three main rivers in the Sundarbans Delta; and Brahmaputra, which becomes the Jamuna River when it flows through Bangladesh and into the bay.

Many ports along the shores of the bay serve both trade and tourism traffic, with Chittagong being the most important in Bangladesh. A secondary port, known as Mongla, is located at the mouth of the Sundarbans in southern Khulna. The water is fairly calm in the Bay of Bengal and the beaches are popular with locals and tourists alike. In Bangladesh, Cox’s Bazar is known to have the world’s longest unbroken sandy beach and is one of the country’s most visited tourism destinations. Kuakata beach, located in the Patuakhali district of Bangladesh, is renowned for its wide open spaces and the fact that you can see the sun both rising from, and sinking, into the water’s horizon. It is also a favored spot for birding enthusiasts. St Martins Island lies around 9 kilometers south of Cox’s Bazar and is also a popular leisure destination.

With its incredible biological diversity, the Bay of Bengal is counted among the world’s 64 largest marine ecosystems. It includes coral reefs, mangroves, estuaries and fish breeding areas. Among the sea creatures resident in the bay and along it is shores are the sea snake species Kerlia jerdonii; the Olive Ridley sea turtle Lepidochelys olivacea; and the Bryde’s whale Balaenoptera edeni. Schools of dolphins frolicking in the waters may include a mix of a the Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphin Sousa chinensis; Bottle-nose dolphin Tursiops truncates; Pantropical spotted dolphins Stenella attenuate; and Spinner dolphin Stenella longirostris. Certainly the Bay of Bengal is one of the treasures of Bangladesh worth noting.