Outside the city of Dacca, rice has been the main crop, and jute is also grown. The population of Dacca was counted as 404,301 in 1951, and it was to rise to 3,397,187 forty years later, in 1991. In 1956, Dacca became the capital of East Pakistan, and it remained the capital when East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh, in 1971. In 1982, its spelling changed to Dhaka. The city is also a commercial and manufacturing center.
In 1991, Dhaka was 83 percent Muslim, 16 percent Hindu, with the remaining one percent mainly Christians and Buddhists. The literacy rate was 36 percent.