Why it looks like this

Gazipur sits directly north of Dhaka, and when Bangladesh's garment industry boomed, this is where much of it landed: factory compounds lining the main roads toward Mymensingh, with fast-built workers' neighbourhoods packed behind them.

The street map shows growth by corridor — dense ribbons along the highway and rail line, thinning quickly into villages and wetland — a city assembled in a few decades around its commute to the capital.