Nijhum Dwip

Nijhum Dwip, "the silent island", is a small island in Hatiya upazila of Noakhali, at the mouth of the Meghna in the Bay of Bengal. It grew out of sandbanks that appeared in the shallow estuary in the early 1950s; fishermen first called it Baular Char, "sand char", and it received its present name in 1975.

A forestation programme started by the Forest Department in 1974 turned the north of the island into a dense coastal forest, mostly of keora with gewa, kankra and other mangrove trees. In 2001 the forest here and in the wider Jahajmara range was declared a national park. In winter thousands of migratory birds arrive. About 25,000 people lived on the island in 2016, mostly farming, fishing and raising livestock.