Sundarbans , also spelled Sunderbans, is a swampy region in Southeast Asia that is home to the world’s largest mangrove forest. In a mangrove forest, also called a mangrove swamp, the spreading roots of mangrove trees catch and hold soil.
The Sundarbans covers an area of about 3,720 square miles (9,360 square kilometers). The region lies in the Ganges Delta, where the Ganges and a number of other rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal. Part of the region is in the Indian state of West Bengal, and the remaining portion lies in the country of Bangladesh.
The Sundarbans area is home to a wide variety of wildlife, including chital deer, crocodiles, king cobras, rhesus monkeys, and lizards called water monitors. The rare Bengal tiger also lives there. The 998-square-mile (2,585-square-kilometer) Sundarbans Tiger Reserve was created in 1973 to protect these tigers. In 1984, an area of about 514 square miles (1,330 square kilometers) in West Bengal was designated as the Sundarban National Park to further protect the region.
In 1987, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) made the Sundarban National Park a World Heritage Site, recognizing it as an area of cultural and natural importance. In 1997, UNESCO further emphasized the importance of the Sundarbans when it named the entire region as a World Heritage Site.
