Padma River in the context of "Brahmaputra River"

The Ganges (/ˈɡændʒiːz/ GAN-jeez; in India: Ganga, /ˈɡʌŋɡɑː/ GUNG-ah; in Bangladesh: Padma, /ˈpʌdmə/ PUD-mə) is a trans-boundary river of Asia which flows through India and Bangladesh. The 2,525-kilometre-long (1,569 mi) river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It flows south and east through the Gangetic plain of North India, receiving the right-bank tributary, the Yamuna, which also rises in the western Indian Himalayas, and several left-bank tributaries from Nepal that account for the bulk of its flow. In West Bengal, India, a feeder canal taking off from its right bank diverts 50% of its flow southwards, artificially connecting it to the Hooghly River. The Ganges continues into Bangladesh, its name changing to the Padma. It is then joined by the Jamuna, the lower stream of the Brahmaputra, and eventually the Meghna, forming the major estuary of the Ganges Delta, and emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna system is the second-largest river on earth by discharge.

The main stem of the Ganges begins at the town of Devprayag, at the confluence of the Alaknanda, which is the source stream in hydrology on account of its greater length, and the Bhagirathi, which is considered the source stream in Hindu mythology.

The Jamuna River (Bengali: যমুনা, romanized: yamunā Jomuna) is one of the three main rivers of Bangladesh. The two other major rivers in Bangladesh are the Padma and the Meghna. The Jamuna is the lower stream of the Brahmaputra River, which originates in Tibet as Yarlung Tsangpo, before flowing through India and then southwest into Bangladesh. The Jamuna flows south and joins the Padma River, near Goalundo Ghat, before meeting the Meghna River near Chandpur. The Meghna then flows into the Bay of Bengal.

The Brahmaputra-Jamuna is a classic example of a braided river and is highly susceptible to channel migration and avulsion.It is characterised by a network of interlacing channels with numerous sandbars enclosed between them. The sandbars, known in Bengali as chars, do not occupy a permanent position. The river deposits them in one year, very often to be destroyed later, and redeposits them in the next rainy season. The process of bank and deposit erosion together with redeposition has been going on continuously, making it difficult to precisely demarcate the boundary between the districts of Sirajganj and Pabna on one side and the districts of Mymensingh, Tangail and Dhaka on the other. The breaking of a char or the emergence of a new one is also a cause of much violence and litigation. The confluence of the Jamuna and the Padma rivers is unusually unstable and has been shown to have migrated southeast by over fourteen kilometres between 1972 and 2014.

The Meghna (Bengali: মেঘনা, romanized: Mēghnā) is one of the major rivers in Bangladesh, one of the three that form the Ganges Delta, the largest delta on earth, which fans out to the Bay of Bengal. A part of the Surma-Meghna River System, the Meghna is formed inside Bangladesh in Kishoreganj District above the town of Bhairab Bazar by the joining of the Surma and the Kushiyara, both of which originate in the hilly regions of eastern India as the Barak River. The Meghna meets its major tributary, the Padma, in Chandpur District. Other major tributaries of the Meghna include the Dhaleshwari, the Gumti, and the Feni. The Meghna empties into the Bay of Bengal in Bhola District via four principal mouths, named Tetulia (Ilsha), Shahbazpur, Hatia, and Bamni.

Bikrampur (lit. City of Courage) was a historic region and a sub-division of Dhaka within the Bengal Presidency during the period of British India. Located along the banks of the Padma River (a major distributary of the Ganges), it was a significant cultural and political centre in both ancient and medieval Bengal. Today, the region is part of the Munshiganj District in Bangladesh.

Varendra (Bengali: বরেন্দ্র), also known as Barind (Bengali: বারিন্দ), was an ancient and historical territory of Northern Bengal, now mostly in Bangladesh and a little portion in the Indian state of West Bengal and Eastern Bihar.

It formed part of the Pundravardhana or Pundra Kingdom region currently part of the Rajshahi and Rangpur Division of Bangladesh and included the districts of Bogra, Rajshahi, Pabna and Dinajpur of Bangladesh and West Dinajpur and Malda of West Bengal, India. According to Cunningham, the boundary of Varendra was the Ganges and the Kosi river on the west, the Karatoya on the east, the Padma River on the south and the land between Cooch Behar and included the Terai.

The Ganges shark (Glyphis gangeticus) is a critically endangered species of requiem shark found in the Ganges River (Padma River) and the Brahmaputra River of India and Bangladesh. It is often confused with the more common bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas), which also inhabits the Ganges River and is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Ganges shark. The genus is currently considered to contain three recent species; genetic evidence has shown that both the Borneo river shark (G. fowlerae) and Irrawaddy river shark (G. siamensis) should be regarded as synonyms of the Ganges shark, expanding the range of the species to Pakistan, Myanmar, Borneo, and Java. The species remains poorly known and is very rare.