village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

is a clustered

human settlement In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community in which people live. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of ci ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

, larger than a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

but smaller than a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

, with a population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. In

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

, a village is the smallest territorial and social unit for administrative and representative purposes. It is an elective unit of a Union Council from which a single council member is elected. Usually one village is designated as a

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

and each union is made up of nine villages. At the 1991 census, there were 68,038 villages in Bangladesh with an average of 232 households. The rural areas of Bangladesh (i.e. villages) are characterized by higher growth rate of population and lower literacy rate compared to urban areas - but these gaps are decreasing. After independence the villages in Bangladesh were underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure and economic activity. Traditional manual process driven agriculture used to be the predominant economic activity. However, the ingenuity and vitality demonstrated by the people is gradually driving the villages towards economic progress.

References

Villages in Bangladesh Fifth-level administrative divisions by country {{bangladesh-geo-stub

See also

References