Chattogram

About Chattogram

Squeezed between green hills and the mouth of the Karnaphuli River, Chattogram, long known as Chittagong, is Bangladesh's second city and its busiest seaport, with more than five million people in the wider metropolitan area. Ancient geographers marked it on their maps, and Arab and Persian traders, the Portuguese, the Arakanese and the Mughals all fought over this rich harbor.

In 1666 the Mughal governor Shaista Khan drove out the Portuguese and Arakanese, and the British East India Company took control a century later, building a railway terminus and port. The Bangladeshi declaration of independence was broadcast from Kalurghat in 1971. Hilltops still carry colonial buildings, while Sufi shrines draw pilgrims from across the country.

Visitors come for the sea breeze at Patenga Beach, the turtle pond at Bayazid Bostami, lakeside parks and the city's famously generous food, especially mezban beef feasts. Chattogram is also the gateway to the Chittagong Hill Tracts and to Cox's Bazar further south.