| |||||
| Capital | Calcutta | ||||
| Largest city | Calcutta | ||||
| Other cities | Dhaka | ||||
| Language official |
Bengali | ||||
| others | English | ||||
| Ethnic Group | Bengali | ||||
| Demonym | Bengali | ||||
| Government | Unitary Parliamentary Republic | ||||
| President | M.K. Narayanan | ||||
| Prime Minister | Abdul Hamid | ||||
| Independence | from Great Britain | ||||
| declared | 1815 | ||||
| Currency | Bengali Taka (BGT) | ||||
| Calling Code | 880 | ||||
| Internet TLD | .bg | ||||
The Bengali Free State, more commonly referred to as Bengal, is a small nation along the coast of the Bay of Bengal in Southeast Asia. The nation is primarily situated on the Ganges River delta, although it stretches north and west of the river delta proper. The country is enormously poor in the countryside, although the capital city of Calcutta is a regional trade hub.
The nation has, traditionally, been a close ally of first Britain, and then England. During the Bengali Wars of 1902-07, the English bankrupt themselves protecting their client state from French-backed Gangestan and later the French Foreign Legion itself. Bengal thus played a pivotal role in the fall of the English crown and the Revolution of 1909. England and their allies, the Americans, have kept Bengal propped up as a trade partner since the 1950's, and the American military has intervened in Bengal twice (1967, 2007) to keep pro-French interests from taking control of the impoverished nation. Bengal also was home to millions of Burmese refugees during the Burmese War of the 1970's and the SEAMA was believed to have operated out of Calcutta for an extended period of time.