Gazipur

About Gazipur

Gazipur begins where Dhaka city ends at Tongi and stretches north into the old Bhawal estate. It has one city corporation, Gazipur, and five upazilas: Gazipur Sadar, Kaliakair, Kaliganj, Kapasia and Sreepur. With about 5.26 million people in the 2022 census, it is now one of the most populous districts in Bangladesh, and nearly two-thirds of its people live in urban areas.

The land is part of the Madhupur tract, slightly raised red and brown soil cut by shallow valleys called baids. That higher ground carries the remnants of the Bhawal sal forest and countless jackfruit trees, while the Turag, Balu, Shitalakshya, Banar and Bangshi rivers drain the low land around it. Kapasia, on the Shitalakshya, is still mostly green farmland; Tongi, Konabari, Kashimpur and the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway corridor are lined with factories.

Gazipur is also a centre of learning and research: the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, DUET, the Islamic University of Technology, Bangladesh Open University and the National University all have campuses here.

History

The area is old. Banglapedia lists early forts at Toke and Ekdala, the remains of Dholsamudra associated with the Pala era, and ruined seats of local kings at Sreepur. The Baro-Bhuiyan chief Isa Khan, who resisted the Mughals, is buried at Bakhtarpur, and the Mughal governor Mir Jumla built a bridge at Tongi that still stands. In the British period indigo factories operated at Raniganj and Barmi, and the Bhawal Raj, based at Joydebpur, became one of the largest zamindari estates of eastern Bengal. Its most famous story is the Bhawal Sannyasi case, a decades-long court battle over whether an ascetic was the prince believed to have died in 1909.

On 19 March 1971, people in Joydebpur resisted Pakistani troops trying to disarm Bengali soldiers, an event remembered as the first armed resistance of the Liberation War and commemorated by the Jagrata Chowrangi sculpture. Tajuddin Ahmad, the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh, was from Kapasia. Gazipur became a district in 1984 and Gazipur City Corporation was formed in 2013.

Economy and livelihoods

Gazipur is one of the biggest industrial districts in the country, with hundreds of garment, knitwear, textile, pharmaceutical and electronics factories in Tongi, Konabari, Kashimpur, Kaliakair and along the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, and the government Hi-Tech City business park at Kaliakair. Away from the factories, the district is famous for jackfruit, especially from Sreepur, Kapasia and Kaliakair, and grows rice, vegetables, pineapple, papaya and litchi. Dairy and poultry farms supply Dhaka every day.

Food, culture and festivals

Every winter the Bishwa Ijtema gathers millions of Muslims for prayers on the bank of the Turag at Tongi, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world. Kaliganj is home to Bhawal Catholic communities around Nagari and Mathbari, whose churches date back centuries, and Rajbangshi and Koch families still live in the forest villages.

Jackfruit season, from late May to July, is the local high point; the green fruit is cooked as a vegetable and the seeds are roasted or curried. Writers and film-makers have long loved the district, and the novelist Humayun Ahmed built his retreat, Nuhash Palli, among the sal trees.

Places to visit in Gazipur

1. Bhawal National Park

   A large protected sal forest along the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway near Rajendrapur, with walking trails, picnic spots and lakes. It is the easiest place near Dhaka to see a native deciduous forest and its birds.

2. Gazipur Safari Park

   An open-range safari park at Sreepur, where visitors drive through enclosures of tigers, lions, bears and deer, with an aviary and a zoo-style core area. Plan for most of a day.

3. Bhawal Rajbari

   The 19th-century palace of the Bhawal zamindars at Joydebpur, a long colonnaded building now used for government offices. Its story is bound up with the famous Bhawal Sannyasi case.

4. Nuhash Palli

   Novelist Humayun Ahmed's garden estate at Pirujali, with ponds, sculptures and a large collection of trees. The writer is buried here, and fans visit throughout the year.

5. Jagrata Chowrangi

   A sculpture of a freedom fighter at the Joydebpur crossing, considered the first memorial to the Liberation War and dedicated to the resistance of 19 March 1971.

What Gazipur is famous for

• Gazipur jackfruit
• Pineapple
• Litchi
• Knitwear and ready-made garments

How to get to Gazipur

Gazipur is joined to Dhaka by the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway through Tongi; Joydebpur is roughly 35 km from central Dhaka, about one to two hours by bus or car depending on traffic. Buses run from Mohakhali and from stops along Airport Road, and the BRT corridor serves the Gazipur route. Most northbound trains stop at Joydebpur junction, which is often faster than the road at rush hour. Kaliakair is on the road to Tangail and the north-west.

Markets and haats

Jaina Bazar, Sreepur

Beside the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, this is widely described as the largest jackfruit market in the country. In season, traders load trucks with fruit for buyers all over Bangladesh.

Amraid Bazar, Kapasia

A big weekly haat on the Dhaka-Kishoreganj road, known as the largest cattle market in Gazipur, especially in the weeks before Eid-ul-Adha.

Tongi Bazar

The old market town on the Turag, near the Mir Jumla bridge, with wholesale fish, vegetables and household goods serving the industrial suburbs.

Gazipur at a glance

Shops from Gazipur on Midmart

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Questions about Gazipur

More districts in Dhaka Division

• Dhaka The capital on the Buriganga: Mughal forts, muslin memories and a city that never pauses
• Faridpur Jute country on the Padma, and home of the poet of rural Bengal
• Gopalganj Beel country on the Madhumati, with floating gardens and Tungipara
• Kishoreganj Gateway to the haors, home of Sholakia and the poet Chandrabati
• Madaripur Arial Khan river town of date-palm gur, Shah Madar and Shakuni Lake
• Manikganj Where the Jamuna meets the Padma: zamindar palaces and hajari gur
• Munshiganj Ancient Bikrampur: potatoes, patkhir and the north end of the Padma Bridge
• Narayanganj Old Sonargaon, jamdani looms and the knitwear port on the Shitalakshya
• Narsingdi Looms of Madhabdi, lotkon orchards and the ancient city of Wari-Bateshwar
• Rajbari Goalundo and Daulatdia: the Padma gateway of onions and jute
• Shariatpur Where the Padma meets the Meghna: Zajira, Kirtinasha and bibikhana pitha
• Tangail Tangail saree, Porabari chamcham and the sal forests of Madhupur