History of Chittagong

History

Chittagong has been a seaport since ancient times. Arabs traded with the port from the 9th Century AD. The Chittagong region was under the Vesali kingdom of Arakan during the Sixth to Eighth Centuries and under the Mrauk U kingdom of Arakan in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Chittagong had been under the control of the Arakanese or kings of Arakan for hundreds of years. An account by historian Lama Taranath has revealed a Buddhist king Gopichandra had his capital at Chittagong in the Tenth Century, and according to Tibetan tradition, Chittagong was the birthplace of the Buddhist Tantric Tilayogi, who lived and worked in the Tenth Century.^[7] In the Fourteenth Century, explorer Ibn Battuta passed through Chittagong during his travels.
Sultan Fakruddin Mubarak Shah of Sonargaon conquered Chittagong in 1340. Sultan Giasuddin Mubarak Shah constructed a highway from Chittagong to Chandpur and ordered the construction of many lavish mosques and tombs. After the defeat of Mahmud Shah in the hands of Sher Shah in 1538, the Arakanese regained Chittagong. From this time onward, until its conquest by the Mughals, this region was under the control of the Portuguese and the Magh pirates (a notorious name for Arakanese) for 128 years.^[7]

Ships moored off Chittagong in the late 1820s.

The Mughal Commandar Bujurg Umed Khan expelled the Arakanese from the area in 1666 and established Mughal rule there. They renamed Chittagong as Islamabad. The city was occupied by Burmese troops shortly in First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824 and the British increasingly grew active in the region and it fell under the British Empire. The people of Chittagong made several attempts to gain independence from the British, notably on November 18, 1857 when the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th companies of the 34th Bengal Infantry Regiment stationed at Chittagong rose in rebellion and released all the prisoners from jail but were suppressed by the Kuki scouts and the Sylhet Light Infantry (10th Gurkha Rifles).^[7]
Chittaong grew at the beginning of the twentieth century after the partition of Bengal and the creation of the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The construction of the Assam Bengal Railway to Chittagong facilitated further development of economic growth in the city. However revolutionaries and opposition movements grew during this time. Many people in Chittagong supported Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements received news of communal riots and massacres of Muslims in Calcutta and other parts of India in 1925.^[7] Terrorism was never far from the surface and one group of Hindu youths under the leadership of Masterda Surya Sen formed the secret Republican Army and set up training camps were youths to train in terrorist tactics against the British. During this time the leaders of the women revolutionaries were Pritilata Waddedar, Bina Das, Lila Ray, Kalpana Dutta, and others The hostility culminated on the night of 18 April 1930, when the revolutionaries led by Surya Sen looted the Armoury and the Magazine House of the Auxiliary Corps, and occupied the telephone and telegraph offices, thus disconnecting all communications.^[7] However the rebellion was suppressed and Sen was arrested and hanged 20 February 1933, ending terrorist activities in Chittagong.

US Navy sailors in Chittagong, 1944

During World War II, the British used Chittagong as an important military base. Frequent bombardment by the Japanese air force,^{[clarification needed]} notably in April 1942 and again on 20 and 24 December 1942, resulted in military relocation to Comilla. Neverless the war had a major negative impact on the city, with the growth of refugees and uneveness in fortune, reflected in the Great Famine of 1943.^[7]
After the war, rapid industrialisation and development saw the city grow beyond its previous municipal area, particularly in the southwest up to Patenga, where Chittagong International Airport is now located.^[7] The former villages of Halishahar, Askarabad and Agrabad became intergrated into the city. The Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) was established by the government of East Pakistan in 1959 to manage this growth and drew up a master plan to be reviewed every five years to plan its urban development. By 1961 the CDA had drawn up a regional plan covering an area of 212 sq mi (549 km²) and a master plan covering an area of 100 sq mi (259 km²).^[7] Over the decades, especially after the losses of 1971, the master plan developed into several specific areas of management, including the Multi-Sectoral Investment Plan plan for drainage and flood-protection of Chittagong City and a plan for easing the traffic congestion and making the system more efficient.^[7]

The port was blocked during the liberation war

During the Bangladesh War of Liberation of 1971, Chittagong suffered massive losses in people and buildings given that they denied the occupation army access to the port. The first public announcement ever made over the radio declaring Independence and the start of the War of Liberation was also made in in the city, from the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra located at Kalurghat, Chittagong. Following the independence of Bangladesh the city underwent a major rehabilitation and reconstruction programme and retained its functioning as a port within a few years.^[7]

[edit] Geography and climate

Under the Köppen climate classification, Chittagong has a tropical monsoon climate. Chittagong is located at 22°22′0″N 91°48′0″E / 22.366667°N 91.8°E / 22.366667; 91.8 on the banks of the Karnaphuli River. It has a total area of 157 square kilometers (61 sq mi). The city is known for its vast hilly terrain that stretches throughout the entire district and eventually into India. Chittagong does not contain any natural lakes, but it does have artificial lakes.