Cox’s Bazar
Cox's Bazar is a city, fishing port, tourism center, and district headquarters in southeastern Bangladesh. It is famous mostly for its long natural sandy beach, and it is
infamous for the largest refugee camp in the world. It is located 150 km
(93 mi) south of the divisional headquarter city of Chittagong. Cox's Bazar is also known by the name Panowa, which
translates literally as "yellow flower". Another old name was
"Palongkee".
The modern Cox's Bazar derives its name
from Captain Hiram Cox, an officer of the British East India Company, a Superintendent of Palongkee outpost. To commemorate his role in
refugee rehabilitation work, a market was established and named after him.
The municipality covers an area of
6.85 km2 with 27 mahallas and 9 wards and as of 2012 had a population of
51,918. Cox's Bazar is connected by road and air with Chittagong
History
From the early 9th century the greater
Chittagong area, including Cox's Bazar, was under the rule of Arakan kings until its conquest by the Mughals in 1666 AD. When the Mughal Prince Shah
Shuja was passing through the hilly
terrain of the present-day Cox's Bazar on his way to Arakan, he was attracted
to its scenic and captivating beauty. He commanded his forces to camp there.
His retinue of one thousand palanquins stopped there for some time. A place named Dulahazara, meaning
"one thousand palanquins," still exists in the area. After the Mughals,
the place came under the control of the Tipras and the Arakanese, followed by
the Portuguese and then the British.
The name Cox's Bazar originated from the
name of a British East India Company officer, Captain Hiram Cox, who was appointed as the
Superintendent of Palonki (today's Cox's Bazar) outpost. He succeeded Warren Hastings, who became the Governor
of Bengal following British East India
Company Act in 1773. Cox embarked upon the task of rehabilitation and
settlement of the Arakanese refugees in the area.[6] He rehabilitated many refugees in the area but died in 1799
before finishing his work. To commemorate him, a market was established and
named after him, called Cox's Bazar. Cox's Bazar was first established in 1854
and became a municipality in 1869.
After the Sepoy Mutiny in
1857, the British East India Company was highly criticized on humanitarian
grounds, especially for its opium trade monopoly over the Indian
Sub-Continent. However, after its dissolution on 1 In January 1874, the company's assets, including its armed forces, were acquired
by the British Crown. After this takeover, Cox's Bazar was declared a district of
the Bengal Province under
the British Crown.
20th Century
After the end of British rule in 1947,
Cox's Bazar became part of East
Pakistan. Captain Advocate Fazlul Karim, the first post-independence chairman of Cox's Bazar Municipality,
established the Tamarisk Forest along the beach. He wanted to attract tourists
as well as to protect the beach from tsunamis. He donated much of his father-in-law's and his own lands as sites
for constructing a public library and a town hall. Karim was inspired to build
Cox's Bazar as a tourist spot after seeing beaches of Bombay and Karachi, and
was a resort pioneer in developing Cox's Bazar as a destination. Karim
established a maternity hospital, the stadium, and the drainage system by
procuring grants from the Ford
Foundation and Rockefeller
Foundation through correspondence. T. H.
Matthews, the principal of the Dacca Engineering College (1949~1954), was a
friend who had helped him in these fundraising efforts. Engineer Chandi Charan
Das was a government civil engineer who worked on all these projects.
In 1959 the municipality was turned into
a town committee.
In 1961 the Geological Survey of Pakistan initiated the investigation of radioactive minerals like monazite around Cox's Bazar sea-beach area.
In 1971, Cox's Bazar wharf was used as a naval port by the Pakistan Navy's gunboats. This and the nearby airstrip of Pakistan
Air Force was the scene of intense shelling
by the Indian Navy during the Bangladesh Liberation War. During the war, Pakistani soldiers killed many people in the
town, including eminent lawyer Jnanendralal Chowdhury. The killing of two
freedom fighters named Farhad and Subhash at Badar Mokam is also recorded in
history.
After Bangladesh's independence, Cox's
Bazar started to receive administrative attention. In 1972 the town committee
of Cox's Bazar was once again turned into a municipality. In 1975, The The government of Bangladesh established a pilot plant at Kalatali. In 1984, Cox's
Bazar subdivision was promoted to a district, and five years later (in 1989) Cox's Bazar municipality was elevated to B-grade. In 1994 (jobs) the Marine Fisheries and Technology Station (MFTS)
was established at Cox's Bazar. MFTS is a research station of Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) headquartered in Mymensingh. The station covers a land area of four hectares and contains five
laboratories
21st Century
In September 2012 the municipality was
the site of the Cox's Bazar and Ramu riots, where local Muslims attacked the Buddhist community over an
alleged Quran desecration posted to Facebook.
In 2017, hundreds of thousands of
refugees from Myanmar arrived in Cox’s Bazar, amounting to 725,000 in October
2018, making it the largest refugee camp in the world. On May 14, 2020, the
first confirmed case of COVID-19 was
detected among the 860,000 Rohingya refugees which lived in Cox’s Bazar
district
Tourism
The beach in Cox's Bazar is the main the attraction of the town with an unbroken length of 155 km (96 mi) also
termed the "longest natural unbroken sea beach" in the world. There
are several 3 stars and 5-star hotels provide the exclusive beachside area with
accessories for the tourist. Visitors in other hotels visit Laboni beach which
is the area of the beach closest to the town. Other than the beach there are
several places of interest near the town which can easily be visited from the
town center.
·
Himachal
National Park: Himchari is located just south of Cox's Bazar
town. It consists of lush tropical rain forest, grasslands and trees, and
features a number of waterfalls, the biggest of which cascades down toward the
sandy, sun-drenched beach. The National Park was established in 1980 by the
Government of Bangladesh as a conservation area for research, education, and
recreation. Once it was the stomping grounds of herds of the Asian elephant. It is still home to a limited number of
these mammals.
·
Agenda
Khang: a large Buddhist monastery, and a place revered by around 400,000
Buddhist people of Cox's Bazar; and the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The main sanctuary is
posted on a series of round timber columns. It has a prayer chamber and an
assembly hall along with a repository of large and small bronze Buddha images
and a number of old manuscripts.
·
Ramu: about 10 km
(6 mi) from Cox's Bazar, is a village with a sizeable Buddhist population.
The village sells handicrafts and homemade cigars. There are
monasteries, khyangs, and pagodas containing images of Buddha in bronze, gold , and other metals with precious stones. One of the temples, on the bank of the
Baghkhali river houses relics and Burmese handicrafts, and also a large bronze
statue of Buddha measuring thirteen feet high which rests on a six feet high
pedestal. Weavers ply their trade in open workshops and craftsmen make handmade
cigars in their pagoda like houses.
·
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Safari Park: Bangabandhu Sheikh
MujibSafari Park is the first Safari Park in Bangladesh. Dulahazara Safari Park
was developed on an undulating landscape of around 2,224 acres (9.00 km2) of an area at Chakaria Upazila in Cox's Bazar District. The nature of the forest is
tropical evergreen and rich with Garjan, Boilam, Telstar, and Chapalish along
with herbs, shrubs, and creepers. Safari Park is a declared protected area
where the animals are kept in a fairly large area with a natural environment and
visitors can easily see the animal whenever they visit by bus, jeep, or on foot.
This park was established on the basis of the South Asian model. This safari park
is an extension of an animal sanctuary located along the Chittagong-Cox's Bazar
road about 50 km (30 mi) from Cox's Bazar town. The sanctuary itself
protects a large number of wild elephants that are native to the area. In the
safari park, there are domesticated elephants that are available for a ride.
Other animal attractions include lions, Bengal tigers, Crocodiles, Bears,
Chitals and lots of different types of birds and monkeys.which is a wonderful
project to attract the tourist.
The only aquarium in Bangladesh is in
Cox's Bazar. Attractions also include parasailing, water biking, beach biking,
horse riding, Cox Carnival circus show, Daria Nagar Ecopark, Cox's Bazar
Development Authority, numerous architectural attractions, Shishu Parks, and
numerous photogenic sites. The largest safari park in the country, Bangabandhu
Safari Park is nearby. There is a forest reserve at Teknaf which also has a cable car planned.
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