Chittagong, চট্টগ্রাম,

Chittagong, চট্টগ্রাম, Chôţţogram, is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 2.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.

Located between the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Bay of Bengal, Chittagong is a major commercial and industrial center as much of Bangladesh's export and import passes through the Port of Chittagong. The port has extensive facilities which are undergoing further development as Bangladesh prepares to serve as a transit country between North East India, Nepal, Bhutan, Southwest China and parts of Burma.According to a report released by International Institute for Environment and Development, Chittagong is among the ten fastest growing cities in the world. Much of the city is surrounded by hilly terrains, and is experiencing rapid urban growth along with increased congestion.

During the early 17th centuries the city was called by the Portugese by the name Port Grande then a part of the Arakan Kingdom, before falling under Mughal rule in 1666. It was later renamed by the Mughals as Islamabad. In 1930, Bengali revolutionaries led by Surya Sen launched the Chittagong uprising against the British Raj, during which British armories, telegraph and telephone offices in the city were attacked and hundreds of Europeans were assassinated in the Chittagong Club. During the Burma Campaign of the Second World War, Chittagong's port served as a major supply line for Allied forces while its airport was a major station for US Air Force combat aircraft. After the Partition of India, the city became a part of East Pakistan. During the Bangladesh Liberation War, Chittagong witnessed some of the heaviest fighting with the Mukti Bahini attacking Pakistani navy ships and the Indian navy firing missiles at Pakistani naval installations. It was in Chittagong where Awami League leader M A Hannan and liberation war hero and future Bangladeshi president Ziaur Rahman famously announced the declaration of independence of the country on behalf of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Chittagong was also where the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman had taken place during a failed mutiny in 1981.

More than six hundred years ago an Islamic preacher Hazrat Badar Aawlia arrived in this city from the seas and chose Cheragi Pahar as his vantage point to spread the message of Islam among the locals. It was at the apex of this hill that the he lit a chati (lamp) and called out (ajaan) for people to join him in saying prayer to God. Chittagong's etymology can then be traced unmistakably back to "chati." And the hills are at the core of Chittagong's mythology.

Another theory is that the first group of brahmins to have settled in this region (after it was incorporated into Bengal from the Arakanese) were 'chatt-upadhyays'. Hence this region came to be known as chatto-gan (gan is the prakrit/bengali term for village). A fact confirming this theory is that the majority of the kayastha of this region were of the kashyap gotra, which is also the gotra of the Chattopadhyays.