Bay of Bengal Beaches

A funnel-shaped bay that produces two things in quantity: extraordinarily long beaches and cyclones. The sediment carried down by the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Irrawaddy has built the largest delta in the world and, along the eastern rim, some of the longest continuous sand in existence — Cox's Bazar runs around a hundred and twenty kilometres. The same shape concentrates storm surge, and this bay has produced the deadliest tropical cyclones on record. Its beaches are used overwhelmingly by domestic visitors and almost never appear on international lists, which says more about the lists than about the beaches. Practically: the north-east monsoon brings rain and cyclone risk to the Indian and Sri Lankan coasts from October to December, while the Bangladeshi and Myanmar shores take the south-west monsoon from May. Lifeguard cover is concentrated near the resort towns and absent along most of the length. Beach use here is overwhelmingly domestic, crowds at festivals are enormous, and modest dress is the norm rather than the exception.

Three of the five are palm-fringed island beaches; the rest are grand ocean strands and urban icon beaches. Together they account for 135 km of shore. · computed from the 5 records below