History & Geography of "Noakhali"

Geography

Noakhali District is located in the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh. It has a land area of 3600.99 km², and is bounded by the Comilla district in the north, the Meghna estuary and the Bay of Bengal in the south, Feni and Chittagong districts in the east, Lakshmipur and the Bhola districts in the west.
The district's annual average temperature ranges from a maximum of 34.3 °C to a minimum of 14.4 °C; it's annual rainfall is 3302 mm. Its main rivers are the Bamni and Meghna.


Upazilas

Noakhali district, whose earlier name was Bhulua, was established in 1821. It consists of 9 upazilas, 5 municipalities, 45 wards, 90 mahallas, 83 union parishads, 909 mouzas and 978 villages. The upazilas are Noakhali Sadar, Subarna Char, Kabirhat, Begumganj, Chatkhil, Companiganj, Hatiya, Sonaimuri, and Senbagh; the municipalities are Chawmuhani, Bashurhat, Chatkhil,Kabir Hat, Maizdee.

Towns

Towns in Noakhali include the following.

Maijdee court

Maijdee Court consists of 9 wards and 36 mahallas, and has a land area of 12.61 km². The town has a population of 74585 (male 51.50%, female 48.50%) with a population density of 5915 km²; its literacy rate is 60.7%. The ancient name of Noakhali Sadar was Sudharam.
In 1948, when the upazila headquarters were destroyed by the erosion of the Meghna River, it was shifted 8 km to the north to its present place at Maijdee.

Sonapur

Sonapur is one of the handful of towns in Bangladesh with a significant population of Catholics most of them are sect of Portuguese sncestor.

Chumohani

Chumohani is another busy town of, which is very popular for the printing and book businesses.

Bashurhat

Bashurhat is a rapidly growing town in Companygonj Upazila most of its inhabitants are foreign workers working in the United States, UK and the Middle East most of all these pepoles are from Bamni.

Chaprashir Hat

This small town, situated presently in Kabirhat Upazila, southern Noakhali, is famous for coastal products and is very important centre for coastal trade.

History

The ancient name of Noakhali is Bhulua. In the 1660s, the agricultural activities of the north-eastern region of Bhulua were seriously affected by floodwater of the Dakatia River flowing from the Tripura hills. To salvage the situation, a canal was dug in 1660 that ran from the Dakatia through Ramganj, Sonaimudi and Chaumuhani to divert water flow to the junction of the rivers Meghna and Feni. After excavating this long canal, Bhulua was renamed "Noakhali" after "Noa" (new) and "khal" (canal) in 1668. The Noakhali district was created in 1821. It originally consisted of two sub-divisions, Noakhali Sadar and Feni. In 1984, Noakhali was split into three districts, Noakhali, Feni and Lakshmipur.
The people of Noakhali actively took part in the Khilafat Movement in 1920.
Since 1790, Noakhali district was seriously affected many times by natural disasters including high tidal bores, tornadoes, flooding, and cyclones. In 1970, a devastating tornado and tidal bore took the lives of about 3 lakh people of the district. During the War of Liberation many direct and guerilla encounters were held between the Pakistan army and the independence fighters. About 70 independence fighters were killed in a direct encounter with the Pakistan army on 15 June 1971, in front of the Sonapur Ahmadia School. Noakhali was liberated on 7 December 1971.

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