Where to Stay in Sirajganj, Rajshahi

What is Sirajganj known for?

Sirajganj worked as the chief river mart for jute in northern Bengal, with several jute presses lining the bank, until the 1897 Assam earthquake shut the mills and shifted the river away from the wharves. Weaving carries the name now. Handloom cloth from Sirajganj District travels well beyond Bangladesh, and the city's other claim is political: the House of Maulana Bhashani stands among the places it shows visitors.

What are the main landmarks in Sirajganj?

Elliott Bridge is the one everyone names. Beyond it the built list runs to the Bahirgola Rail Bridge, the Jamidar Bari, the Jame Mosque, and the Tomb of Shah Sufi Afzal Mahmud, with the Jugal Kishore Temple, the Kalibari Temple, and the Old Christian Cemetery marking the older communities. Three statues carry the war: Durjoy Bangla Statue, Muktir Songram Statue, and Mujib Dorshon Statue.

Jamuna Eco Park is the green one.

What is the history of Sirajganj?

The name comes from a landholder. Siraj Ali Chowdhury, a zamindar living at Belkuchi under Lord Cornwallis, took a share of the Boro Baju pargana in 1787 and opened a gunj, a market, inside his own estate, and the market took his name. The port came after.

It was raised on the Jamuna River between 1809 and 1830, then moved three times as the current ate its bank, settling at Bhuterdiar, where the built city stands. Sirajganj became a subdivision in 1845, and its criminal cases passed to the sessions judge at Rajshahi the year after. Jute paid for the rest of the century.

Under British rule the town belonged to the Pabna District of Eastern Bengal and Assam, six hours by steamer from the railway terminal at Goalundo, and it served as the chief river mart for jute in northern Bengal and western Mymensingh. Then the ground moved. The 1897 Assam earthquake closed the jute mills and pushed the Brahmaputra farther from the town, and Narayanganj, which had a rail connection, took the trade.

Sirajganj waited until 1915 for the Sara-Sirajganj line. One more date sticks: in 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Pakistani brigadier Jehanzeb Arbab looted the bank here.

Where is Sirajganj?

Sirajganj sits on the right bank of the Jamuna River, the main stream of the Brahmaputra, in north-western Bangladesh, about 110 kilometres north-west of Dhaka and inside Rajshahi Division. The channel keeps moving. Belkuchi, downstream, held the port before erosion carried it to Bhuterdiar, the ground the built city stands on, and Sirajganj Sadar Upazila covers that ground while Sirajganj District spreads inland behind the bank.

What is the climate of Sirajganj?

The Jamuna River sets the terms here. Sirajganj lies in the northern subtropics, so heat rather than cold shapes the year, and the pressure that actually gets engineered against is the water: the channel has changed course before and taken the port with it. That is why the Sirajganj Hard Point and the China Barrages exist.

Both hold the bank in place.

How do you get to Sirajganj?

Most arrivals come by road. The national highway N405 passes just south of the city, running east across the Jamuna Bridge to the Joydebpur-Jamalpur Highway at Elenga and west toward the Dhaka-Banglabandha Highway. Two regional roads, the Soydabad-Sirajganj Road and the Nalka-Sirajganj Road, tie the town into it.

Rail came late. An intercity train works the Dhaka route six days a week on the old Sara-Sirajganj line, whose first stops here were Sirajganj Bazar, Sirajganj Ghat, and Bahirgola.