Chattogram

About Chattogram

Chattogram district stretches along the south-eastern coast of Bangladesh, from the Feni river and the Tripura border in the north down to Cox's Bazar in the south, with the Chittagong Hill Tracts to the east and the Bay of Bengal to the west. The island of Sandwip forms one of its fifteen upazilas. With more than nine million people in 2022, it is the second most populous district in the country, and Chattogram city, on the north bank of the Karnaphuli, is Bangladesh's second city and its busiest port.

Unlike most of the delta, the district is hilly. Low ranges run parallel to the coast, the best known being the Sitakunda hills, which rise to about 350 metres at Chandranath. Three rivers shape the plains between them: the Karnaphuli, which reaches the sea at Patenga; the Sangu further south; and the Halda, a tributary of the Karnaphuli famous as one of the few natural breeding grounds of Indian major carp in South Asia. People speak Chittagonian, a language variety so distinct that visitors from Dhaka often cannot follow it.

History

A natural harbour made Chattogram a trading port long before it was part of a Bengali state: Arab merchants called here from around the ninth century, and later the area passed between Bengal sultans, the Tripura kings and the Arakanese, while Portuguese adventurers held Sandwip and harried the coast in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1666 the Mughal governor Shaista Khan took the port and set up the administration that makes Chattogram the oldest district in Bangladesh; the British East India Company gained control in 1760, and the hill tracts were split off as a separate district in 1860.

The district holds a special place in the freedom struggle. In 1930 the schoolteacher Surya Sen ("Masterda") led an armed raid on the British armoury in the city, and the gallows where he was hanged in 1934 is preserved in the central jail. On 26 and 27 March 1971 the declaration of Bangladesh's independence was broadcast from the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra set up at Kalurghat on the Karnaphuli. The district is also home to sizeable Hindu and Buddhist communities, and Banglapedia notes the ancient Buddhist sites around Raozan and Rangunia.

Economy and livelihoods

Chattogram's port handles the large majority of the country's seaborne trade, and much of the economy grows out of it: export garment factories in the export processing zones, shipping and freight firms, steel and cement mills, and the shipbreaking yards along the Sitakunda coast. Khatunganj and Asadganj, old riverside wholesale quarters, set prices for edible oil, sugar, spices, pulses and dried fish across the country. Outside the city, farmers grow rice, vegetables and betel leaf, the hills around Fatikchhari carry tea gardens, and the coast supports salt and fishing.

Food, culture and festivals

Food is a point of pride. A Chittagonian mezban is a community feast built around a rich, spicy beef curry cooked in huge pots, served to hundreds of guests at memorials and celebrations. Kala bhuna (slow-fried, nearly black beef), shutki (dried fish) curries, and bela biscuits from old city bakeries are other local specialities that people carry home.

The district's festivals reflect its mixed faiths: the shrines of Bayazid Bostami, with its pond of black softshell turtles, and Shah Amanat draw Muslim pilgrims; Sitakunda's Chandranath temple hosts a big Shiva Chaturdashi fair; and Buddhist communities celebrate Probarana and Kathin Chibar Dan. Chittagonian folk songs, including the songs of Shefali Ghosh and Shyam Sundar Baishnab, are beloved across Bangladesh, and the Jabbarer Boli Khela wrestling contest held in the city each Boishakh dates back to 1909.

Places to visit in Chattogram

1. Patenga beach

   A sea beach at the mouth of the Karnaphuli, about 14 km from the city centre, where you can watch ocean-going ships queue for the port. Sunset and the food stalls along the promenade make it the city's favourite evening outing.

2. Chandranath Hill, Sitakunda

   The highest point of the Sitakunda range, topped by a Shiva temple reached by a long flight of steps through forest. The climb takes a couple of hours and rewards you with views to the sea.

3. Guliakhali sea beach, Sitakunda

   An unusual coastline of grassy tidal mudflats crossed by small channels and lined with mangrove trees, quite different from a sandy beach.

4. Foy's Lake

   A reservoir dug among the hills of Pahartali by the Assam Bengal Railway in 1924, now a lakeside amusement and resort area.

5. Commonwealth War Cemetery

   A quiet, well-kept cemetery in the city holding the graves of soldiers who died in the Burma campaign of the Second World War.

6. Ethnological Museum

   Opened in 1974 in Agrabad, it introduces the Indigenous peoples of Bangladesh through clothing, tools and models.

What Chattogram is famous for

• Chattogram dried fish (shutki)
• Mezbani beef spice mix
• Bela biscuit
• Fatikchhari tea

How to get to Chattogram

Chattogram is well connected with Dhaka. Flights from Dhaka to Shah Amanat International Airport take under an hour. Intercity trains from Kamalapur reach Chattogram station in roughly five to six hours, and buses on the Dhaka–Chattogram highway take about five to seven hours depending on traffic, arriving at terminals such as Dampara, Garibullah Shah and Oxygen. From Chattogram, buses continue to Cox's Bazar, Bandarban and Rangamati.

Markets and haats

Khatunganj and Asadganj

The historic wholesale lanes by the Chaktai canal, the national trading hub for spices, sugar, oil, pulses and dried fish. Asadganj is the place to see sacks of shutki of every kind.

Reazuddin Bazar

A vast, crowded market near the railway station selling almost everything, from electronics and clothes to kitchenware and food.

Terri Bazar

The city's best-known market for fabrics, saris, wedding clothes and tailoring, busiest before Eid and the wedding season.

Chattogram at a glance

Shops from Chattogram on Midmart

No shop from Chattogram is selling on Midmart yet.

Questions about Chattogram

More districts in Chattogram Division

• Bandarban Cloud-wrapped hills, the Sangu river and the highest peaks in Bangladesh
• Brahmanbaria The Titas, classical music, chhanamukhi and the gas fields that power the east
• Chandpur The home of hilsa, where the Padma, Meghna and Dakatia meet
• Cumilla Mainamati's Buddhist ruins, khadi cloth and the rasmalai everyone asks for
• Cox's Bazar An unbroken sea beach, the Marine Drive, dried fish and salt fields
• Feni The gateway between Dhaka and Chattogram, home of Khandal's sweets
• Khagrachari Green hills on the Chengi river, Alutila cave and the road to Sajek
• Lakshmipur Soybean fields, coconut and betel nut groves on the Meghna estuary
• Noakhali New land from the Meghna: Hatiya, Nijhum Dwip and a famous dialect
• Rangamati Kaptai Lake, the hanging bridge and Sajek: the lake district of the hills