With a population around 3.5 million, the capital of Bangladesh is Dhaka.
Dhaka is Bangladesh’s largest city and the country’s political, administrative, financial, and cultural center. It stands near the Buriganga River in the fertile Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, roughly in the country’s central region. The city is also commonly spelled “Dacca” in older English sources.
Dhaka became an important Mughal provincial capital in the early 17th century, when Islam Khan shifted Bengal’s capital there around 1608–1610. After the partition of British India in 1947, it became the capital of East Bengal and later East Pakistan. When Bangladesh became independent in 1971, Dhaka became the capital of the new nation.
A common mix-up is Chattogram, formerly Chittagong, which is Bangladesh’s major port city but not its capital. Another distinction matters too: population figures vary depending on whether they refer to the central city, city corporations, or the wider metropolitan area.