Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The indigenous people of Bangladesh are ethnic minorities in Chittagong Hill Tracts (southeastern), Sylhet Division (northeastern), Rajshahi Division (west), and Mymensingh Division (north-central) areas of the country. They are indigenous and the tribal races, total population of ethnic minorities in Bangladesh was estimated to be over 2 million in 2010.^[1] They are diverse ethnic communities including Tibeto-Burman,^[2] Austric and Dravidian people.

According to the Ethnologue, there are 36 indigenous living linguistic communities, which include 17 Sino-Tibetan, 10 Indo-European, 7 Austro-Asiatic and 2 Dravidian language-speaking groups.^[3]

Quite a few of these groups, such as the Chakmas and Marmas (the largest and second largest respectively), migrated to Bangladesh before the British period from modern Burma. Others migrated from Central India, where they are referred to as Upajati (Tribal). Most of these groups are often disadvantaged compared to ethnic Bengalis since Bangladesh was created as a Bengali nation-state. Ethnic minorities of Bangladesh have their own cultural traditions and, frequently, languages.^[4] Vast number of indigenous tribes of Bangladesh are traditionally Buddhists and Hindus by faith while others are Christians and animists.