Dhaka

• 1. Introduction

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  Dhaka holds a distinction that few cities can claim: with an estimated population of 36.6 million, it is the second largest city by population in the world, and is widely regarded as the most densely populated built-up urban area on Earth. That is a staggering number of human lives compressed into a city that covers just 270 square kilometres on the Ganges Delta, hemmed in by the Buriganga, Turag, Dhaleshwari, and Shitalakshya rivers. Yet the sheer scale of modern Dhaka is only the beginning of its story. How did a trading post on the marshy Bengal floodplain become one of the richest cities of the Mughal Empire? Why was it once called the Venice of the East? How did a city that dominated the global muslin trade for centuries fall, then rise again, only to face new crises of pollution, overcrowding, and political upheaval? And what does it mean today to be the beating heart of Bangladesh, a nation of over 170 million people?

• 2. Before the Mughals

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  The area where Dhaka now stands has been inhabited since the first millennium. Long before the Mughals arrived, the region formed part of the ancient district of Bikrampur, under the rule of the Sena dynasty. When Islamic rule came, it was absorbed into the historic district of Sonargaon, which served as the administrative hub of the Delhi and Bengal Sultanates. The Grand Trunk Road threaded through the region, tying it to North India, Central Asia, and the port city of Chittagong to the south-east. Before Dhaka rose to prominence, the successive capitals of Bengal included Gour, Pandua, Bikrampur, and Sonargaon. That last city was also the seat of Isa Khan and his son Musa Khan, who led a confederation of twelve chieftains resisting Mughal expansion in eastern Bengal during the late 16th century. It was a change in the course of the Ganges itself that sealed Gour's fate; the river shifted, stripping the old capital of its strategic value. Dhaka, by contrast, offered the Mughals exactly what they needed: a secure foothold for consolidating eastern Bengal and a launching pad for further campaigns into Assam and Arakan. Dhaka and Chittagong together became the eastern frontiers of the Mughal Empire.

• 3. City of Jahangir

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  In 1610, Dhaka was made the capital of the Mughal province of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, a jurisdiction stretching across modern-day Bangladesh and eastern India, including the present Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. Islam Khan I was the first Mughal governor to actually reside in the city, and it was he who renamed it Jahangirnagar, meaning the City of Jahangir, in honour of the reigning emperor. Emperor Shah Jahan himself visited in 1624 and spent a week in the city, four years before he ascended to the throne. The prosperity of Dhaka reached its peak under the administration of governor Shaista Khan, who served during two stints between 1644 and 1688. At that time, rice was reportedly sold at eight maunds per rupee, a measure of abundance that astonished foreign visitors. Thomas Bowrey, an English merchant sailor who visited between 1669 and 1670, wrote that the city measured 40 miles in circuit and was, by his estimate, more populated than London, with around 900,000 people. Under Shaista Khan, the city measured 19 by 13 kilometres. Dhaka was home to an array of Mughal bureaucrats, military officials, and members of the imperial family. The Bibi Mariam Cannon, known in translation as the Lady Mary Cannon, guarded the city. Construction of the Lalbagh Fort began in 1678, commissioned by Prince Azam Shah, a son of Emperor Aurangzeb and himself a future Mughal emperor, who intended it as the viceregal residence of Mughal governors in eastern India. Before the fort could be finished, Aurangzeb recalled his son. Governor Shaista Khan then halted the work following the death of his daughter Pari Bibi, whose name means Fairy Lady and who was legendary for her beauty and her betrothal to Prince Azam Shah. She is buried in a tomb at the centre of the unfinished fort, which stands to this day.

• 4. Muslin and Commerce

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  Bengal accounted for 40% of Dutch imports from Asia during the Mughal period, with many products sold to Dutch ships in Bengali harbours and then transported to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. Bengal also supplied 50% of textiles and 80% of silks in Dutch textile imports from Asia, and Bengali silk was exported as far as premodern Japan. Dhaka sat at the centre of this commercial web as the capital of the muslin trade, with the cloth becoming so associated with the city that it was simply called "Daka" in distant markets stretching to Central Asia. The weavers of Dhaka were patronized by the rulers of Bengal and Delhi, and supplied textiles directly to the Mughal imperial court. European East India Companies from Britain, Holland, France, and Denmark all depended on Bengali goods. A remarkable detail from this era concerns shipbuilding: the output of Bengal during the 16th and 17th centuries stood at 223,250 tons annually, dwarfing the 23,061 tons produced by all of North America between 1769 and 1771. Merchants from across Eurasia poured into the city. An Armenian community from the Safavid Empire settled in Dhaka and engaged in the textile trade, paying a 3.5% tax. The Armenians were active in the city's social life and opened the Pogose School. Marwari Hindu traders also established themselves, joined over time by Jews and Greeks. The French acquired the property that would later become the Ahsan Manzil. The legacy of these communities endures in Old Dhaka's neighbourhood names: Farashganj, which means French Bazaar; Armanitola, the Armenian Quarter; and Postogola, the Portuguese Quarter.

• 5. Decline and British Rule

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  Internal conflict in the Mughal court eventually curtailed Dhaka's growth. A rivalry between Prince Azam Shah and Murshid Quli Khan resulted in the provincial capital being shifted to Murshidabad in 1717, where Murshid Quli Khan declared himself Nawab of Bengal. British military raids damaged much of the city's infrastructure in subsequent decades. When the British East India Company gained the right to collect taxes in Bengal under the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765, the Naib Nazim of Dhaka continued in a reduced role until 1793, when all his powers were formally transferred to the Company. The Industrial Revolution then dealt the city's weavers a severe blow. A 75% tax on the export of cotton from Bengal, combined with a surge of cheap British-manufactured cloth following the invention of the spinning mule and steam power, drove Bengali weavers out of business entirely. In 1824, an Anglican bishop described Dhaka as a "City of magnificent ruins". By the 1840s it still held an estimated 90,000 houses and huts, with a population of around 300,000. The first partition of Bengal in 1905 reversed the neglect. Lord Curzon's brainchild restored Dhaka as a regional capital and made it the seat of government for Eastern Bengal and Assam, a jurisdiction covering most of modern-day Bangladesh and all of what is now Northeast India. Stately buildings rose, including the High Court and Curzon Hall. The city hosted a conference in 1906 at which the All India Muslim League was founded, with the Nawab of Dhaka and the Aga Khan III as joint hosts. The name Dhaka acquired a new political weight it has never since lost.

• 6. Partition, Liberation, and Independence

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  At the time of the partition of India in 1947, approximately 58.5% of Dhaka's population was Hindu, and roughly 85% of all immovable property in the city was owned by Hindus. What followed was one of the most dramatic demographic reversals in the city's history. Many Hindus abandoned property out of fear of violence; others were dispossessed by the government, often without compensation. Properties were seized under laws that eventually became known as the Vested Property Act. State-sponsored anti-Hindu riots in 1950 accelerated the exodus. By the 1951 Census of Pakistan, the first held after partition, only 11.7% of Dhaka's population was Hindu. The city was formally declared the legislative capital of Pakistan in 1962, under the constitution proclaimed by Ayub Khan. On the 7th of March 1971, Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman addressed a massive public gathering at the Ramna Race Course Maidan and warned of an independence struggle. On the 25th of March 1971, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight against the population of East Pakistan. Dhaka bore the brunt of the atrocities: civilians, students, intellectuals, political activists, and religious minorities were arrested, tortured, and killed. Large parts of the city were burnt. The Pakistan Eastern Command surrendered to Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora at the Ramna Race Course on the 16th of December 1971. The Constituent Assembly of Bangladesh declared Dhaka the national capital in 1972. In 2008, the city celebrated 400 years as a municipal city, and the government organised three years of celebrations between 2008 and 2011 to mark four centuries since Dhaka's founding as an early modern city.

• 7. Megacity and Modern Pressures

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  Between 1990 and 2005, Dhaka's population doubled from 6 million to 12 million, driven in large part by rural migration; 60% of the city's population growth has come from people leaving the countryside. As of 2016, nearly one third of Dhaka's residents live in slums, and as of 2021, the largest single slum is in Kamrangirchar, where about 600,000 people live in slum conditions. The city accounts for 35% of Bangladesh's economy, and the Greater Dhaka Area as a whole accounts for 46% of the national economy. The Dhaka Stock Exchange, opened on the 28th of April 1954, now lists over 750 companies. Rickshaws remain at the centre of city life; more than 1.5 million operate each day, the highest number in any city in the world, and in 2011 they accounted for 54% of all vehicle trips. Before the opening of the Dhaka Metro Rail in December 2022, Dhaka held the dubious distinction of being the largest city in the world without a mass rapid transit system. The first phase of Metro Line 6 was inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the 28th of December 2022, running from Uttara to Agargaon. Environmental stress is severe. Only 7% of the city was covered by roads as of 2014, and the average car speed in the city is less than 7 kilometres per hour. Four of the rivers surrounding Dhaka, the Buriganga, Sitalakhya, Balu, and Turag, were declared ecologically critical areas in 2009. The Dasherkandi Sewage Treatment Plant, opened in 2023, is South Asia's largest, with a capacity to treat 500 megalitres, yet it still handles only 20-25% of the city's daily sewage output, and the Bangladesh Government has announced plans to install over 12 large new sewage treatment plants over the next 20 years.

• 8. Culture, Cuisine, and Heritage

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  Dhaka's Bengali New Year parade, its Jamdani sari, and its rickshaw art have each been recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of humanity. UNESCO describes Jamdani as a vividly patterned, sheer cotton fabric traditionally woven on a handloom by craftspeople and apprentices around Dhaka, and regards the Jamdani sari as a symbol of identity, dignity, and self-recognition. Rickshaw painting, according to UNESCO, is a key part of the city's cultural tradition and a dynamic form of urban folk art. The city's cuisine carries its own layered history. Dhaka has historically been regarded as the culinary capital of Bengal for Muslim cuisine, rooted in the Mughlai tradition. The Kacchi Biryani, a variant made with mutton steaks and potatoes, was invented by chefs from Dhaka who had served in the kitchens of the Nawabs. One of the longest-running establishments serving it is Fakhruddin's. The korma recipe of the Nawab family was included by Madhur Jaffrey in her cookbook. Since 1939, Haji Biryani has been a leading biryani restaurant in the city. Bakarkhani breads from Dhaka were once served in the courts of Mughal rulers. The city's cultural life reaches into literature: the University of Dhaka, founded in 1921 and initially modelled on the residential style of the University of Oxford, has on its faculty list the scientist Satyendra Nath Bose, the namesake of the Higgs boson. The city is associated with two Nobel laureates, and the offices of both the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank and BRAC, described as the largest non-governmental development organisation in the world, are based in Dhaka.