Bagha Upazila


Bagha is an upazila of Rajshahi District in the Division of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.

Geography

Bagha is located at . It has 29056 households and total area 184.25 km².
Bagha Upazila is bounded by Charghat Upazila and Bagatipara Upazila, the latter in Natore District, on the north, Lalpur and Bagatipara Upazilas, both in Natore District, on the east, Daulatpur Upazila, Kushtia in Khushtia District, on the south and Jalangi CD Block, in Murshidabad district, West Bengal, India, on the west.

Demographics

According to 2011 Bangladesh census, Bagha had a population of 184,183. Males constituted 49.96% of the population and females 50.04%. Muslims formed 94.70% of the population, Hindus 5.21%, Christians 0.03% and others 0.07%. Bagha had a literacy rate of 49.65% for the population 7 years and above.
As of the 1991 Bangladesh census, Bagha has a population of 153931. Males constitute 51.48% of the population, and females 48.52%. This Upazila's eighteen up population is 77686. Bagha has an average literacy rate of 26.2%, and the national average of 32.4% literate.

History

Alaipur village of Bagha was the headquarters of Laskar Khan Jaigirdar during the sixteenth century. Hazrat Shah Doulah settled at Bagha and started preaching Islam. He also established a famous madrasa here. Bagha thana of present-day Rajshahi district was a thriving centre of learning in the early Muslim period. The place became famous after Shah Muazzam Danishmand from Baghdad settled there during the reign of Sultan Nasir-ud-din Nusrat Shah and built his Khanqah there. An inscription table of the time of Sultan Nusrat Shah was discovered there that records the construction of a Jam’i mosque in 930 A.H. One Abdul Latif visited the Bagha madrasah in 1609. There he met an elderly Sufi named Hawadah Main son of Maulana Shah Daula, who was running a madrasah and a khanqah in a peaceful environment. Probably the madrasah was established during the reign of Nusrat Shah.

Administration

Bagha has 2 Municipality, 7 Unions/Wards, 98 Mauzas/Mahallas, and 101 villages.