About the Island of Bhola
Introduction
Where is it?What is it like? - the environment
What is it like? - the people
Why are so many disabled?
Bhola is a very poor island in the Ganges Delta in Bangladesh with major environmental, social and health problems. The name Bhola means "forgotten place".
The basic statistics
Because of the rising sea and land erosion the shape and size of Bhola is in constant flux, so the following figures are very approximate.
The island is around 95 km long by an average of 35 km wide, some 3,400 km2 in total.
According to the last census in 2001, the population of Bhola then was around 1.7 million. This was made up of 329,000 households in 461 villages and 5 main towns – 486 people per km2. (For comparison, the UK has 246 per km2.) Since then the population has grown and the land shrunk, so density must be significantly higher.