The most noticeable characteristic of the national urban system in Bangladesh is that it has been formed under the influence of international political changes. When the present territory of Bangladesh was separated from India in 1947, the area was much less urbanized with its urban population less than 4 %. Its small cities were just constituent of a partial set divided from the Calcutta-based urban system in the eastern part of British India. Even Dhaka, the present capital, was a local town whose population size was merely one tenth of Calcutta. The process in which those disconnected cities have formed the present urban system would show some essential factors to support a national urban system.<BR>The first stage of the process is the domination of the capital after the provincial government of the former East Pakistan was located. Though Dhaka had been a political center of muslims in the east Bengal, it was far from primate in the area at the time of the partition. The population of Dhaka grew more rapidly than that of Chittagong, the second largest city, to become the only nuclear of a political region. It is 2.5 times as large as Chittagong in 1981 and its primacy is still increasing. But thanks to Chittagong and Khulna which have international trade centers, the centralization of population is more or less lightened and hardly called extreme as rank-size distribution illustrates.<BR>The second stage is the development of large cities on a national scale by intensive industrial investment to selected centers. Industrialization was first set up with a view of substitution for the jute industries in Calcutta, and the labor-absorbing industries provided growth poles in the initial stage of urbanization. For example, Khulna, the third largest city at present, has developed only since jute mills were established in the 1950's. The top 4 cities (i.e. Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Narayanganj) have not only commercial, transport and administrative function but also have industrial function, which distinguishes them from other local cities as well as population size.<BR>The third stage is the growth of local cities with the development of transportation network. The early example is the growth of Mymensing in the 1960's, but this is rather new trend in Bangladesh. Recent change of the means of transportation from vessels to automobiles has promoted the construction of all weather roads radiating from Dhaka, and the secondary local centers (e.g. Barisal, Sylhet, Rangpur) were emerging in each sector. The growth of local trade centers are, at the same time, supported by the recovery of consumer purchasing power after ten year economic difficulties caused by independence war from Pakistan in 1971. Spatial factor of the accessibility to Dhaka is now more effective than political factor of local administrative hierarchy.<BR>In connection with the change of the urban system, there are two more factors which seems to be important in the future. One is a regional development plan called “upazila development project”, which includes such projects as construction of paved roads and health care facilities in every upazila, or a local administrative unit. The plan will serve a test case of the influence of regional development on the national urban system in the third world.<BR>The other is the international relationship with India. The trade with India is not so much at present, but some manufactured goods flows into Bangladesh through western border. More active economic interchange with Calcutta would stimulate the rise of some cities in the western area.<BR>Bangladesh is still on her way of urbanization. The process above mentioned is rather common to most nations than Bangladesh proper, but the speed of change in the urban system is quite rapid and this would be the reflection of a character of Bangladeshi society.