Bagerhat

About Bagerhat

Bagerhat sits in the far south-west of Bangladesh, where the land breaks up into tidal rivers before reaching the Bay of Bengal. Khulna lies to the west, Gopalganj and Narail to the north, and the wide Baleshwar river separates it from Pirojpur and Barguna on the east. The Pasur, Madhumati, Bhairab and a web of smaller channels carry the tide deep inland, and the southern upazilas of Mongla and Sarankhola open straight onto the Sundarbans mangrove forest.

The district is best known for two very different things. Around the town of Bagerhat stand the brick mosques, tanks and roads of a fifteenth-century city founded by Khan Jahan Ali, listed by UNESCO in 1985 as the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat. A short drive south, Mongla is the country’s second seaport and the most common starting point for boat trips into the Sundarbans, home of the Bengal tiger.

Between those landmarks is a quiet countryside of coconut groves, betel-nut gardens and shallow ponds called ghers, where farmers raise freshwater golda prawns in the north and saltwater bagda shrimp nearer the coast. That mix of heritage, forest and water farming gives Bagerhat its particular character.

History

In the first half of the fifteenth century a Sufi saint and administrator, Khan Jahan Ali, cleared the forest here and built a planned settlement known in records as Khalifatabad. He laid out roads, dug large drinking-water tanks such as Ghora Dighi and Thakur Dighi, and raised dozens of mosques in a sturdy local brick style. His tomb inscription gives his death as 1459, and the town that grew around his works became Bagerhat. Local tradition offers more than one story for the name, and none is settled.

Under British rule the area belonged to Jessore and later Khulna district; Morrelganj takes its name from the Morrell family, nineteenth-century British landholders. The port at Mongla grew from an anchorage opened in the early 1950s. During the 1971 Liberation War Bagerhat fell in Sector 9, and several mass graves recall killings at places such as Shakharikathi hat. Bagerhat became a full district in 1984.

Economy and livelihoods

Prawn and shrimp farming is the backbone of the rural economy. Fakirhat, Chitalmari, Mollahat and Bagerhat Sadar are among the main golda prawn areas, while Rampal and Mongla farm bagda in brackish ghers; much of the catch goes to processing plants and on to export. Coconut, betel nut, rice and vegetables grown on gher embankments add to farm income. Mongla port, its export processing zone and the Rampal power plant bring industrial jobs, and the Sundarbans supply honey, fish and crabs under seasonal permits. Tourism around the mosque city and forest is a growing source of work.

Food, culture and festivals

Food here leans on water and coconut: prawn malaikari cooked in coconut milk, river fish curries, and coconut-based pithas in winter. Every year the tomb of Khan Jahan Ali draws large crowds for its annual fair, and visitors feed the crocodiles that live in Thakur Dighi beside the shrine, a custom kept for generations. Hindu and Muslim communities share the district, and Durga Puja and the Eid festivals are both celebrated widely.

Life in the south is shaped by the forest. Honey collectors, fishers and woodcutters known as bawalis still enter the Sundarbans in season, and their songs and prayers to Bonbibi, the forest goddess honoured by people of both faiths, are part of local folklore.

Places to visit in Bagerhat

1. Sixty Dome Mosque (Shait Gumbad Masjid)

   The largest medieval mosque in Bangladesh, built in the fifteenth century under Khan Jahan Ali, with rows of stone pillars carrying 77 low domes. It is the centrepiece of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a small site museum next to it explains the wider mosque city.

2. Tomb of Khan Jahan Ali and Thakur Dighi

   The domed tomb of the city’s founder stands beside a large tank about 5 km from the Sixty Dome Mosque. The shrine is an active place of pilgrimage, and the pond is known for its resident crocodiles.

3. Nine Dome Mosque and Singair Mosque

   Smaller mosques of the same period, the Nine Dome Mosque on the bank of Thakur Dighi and the single-domed Singair Mosque opposite the Sixty Dome Mosque, show the terracotta detail of Khan Jahan’s builders up close and are easy to visit on foot.

4. Mongla Port

   The country’s second seaport, on the Pasur river, where ocean-going ships anchor beside forest-lined banks. Most day trips and longer cruises into the eastern Sundarbans start from here.

5. Karamjal, Sundarbans

   A forest department station a short boat ride from Mongla, with a wooden walkway through the mangroves, spotted deer, monkeys and a crocodile breeding centre. It is the easiest way to see the Sundarbans in half a day.

What Bagerhat is famous for

• Bagerhat golda prawn
• Sundarbans honey
• Coconut
• Betel nut

How to get to Bagerhat

Since the Padma Bridge opened, buses from Dhaka’s Sayedabad and Gabtoli terminals reach Bagerhat in about four to five hours via Bhanga, Gopalganj and Fakirhat. Trains from Dhaka run to Khulna, roughly an hour’s drive away, and Jashore airport has regular domestic flights from Dhaka; from either, take a bus or car on to Bagerhat town. Mongla is about an hour south of Bagerhat by road.

Markets and haats

Faltita Bazar, Fakirhat

One of the best-known golda prawn and prawn-fry markets in the south-west, beside the Khulna highway. Traders and depots buy from gher farmers here in season.

Barakpur Bazar, Bagerhat Sadar

A busy fish and shrimp market close to town, with its own traders’ association and a strong trade in prawns during the harvest.

Chitalmari Bazar

The main market of a prawn-farming upazila, good for river fish, vegetables grown on gher dykes, and local coconuts.

Bagerhat at a glance

Shops from Bagerhat on Midmart

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Questions about Bagerhat

More districts in Khulna Division

• Chuadanga Border farmland of date molasses, betel leaf and the Darshana sugar mill
• Jashore The flower capital, home of date molasses and the Benapole gateway
• Jhenaidah Sultanate mosques, Naldanga temples and the giant banyan of Kaliganj
• Khulna River city of shrimp and the gateway to the Sundarbans
• Kushtia Land of Lalon and Tagore, tiler khaja and Kumarkhali handlooms
• Magura Raja Sitaram’s country of jute fields, pera sandesh and Khamarpara doi
• Meherpur Mujibnagar, where Bangladesh’s first government took its oath
• Narail S M Sultan’s Chitra river country, home of boat races and cricketers
• Satkhira Early mangoes, soft-shell crabs and the western Sundarbans