Rajshahi division is situated in Northwestern part of Bangladesh. The major cities of Rajshahi division are Rajshahi, Rangpur, Bogra and Dinajpur. Rajshahi and the city of Saidpur have airports, with daily flights to the capital city of Dhaka. A major landmark in Rajshahi is the Kantaji Mondir, a Hindu temple north of Dinajpur. The temple is covered entirely with thousands of terra cotta tiles, each with a unique design. Other sites of interest are Sompur Bihara, a large buddhist monastery, a Mohasthangar, home to archeological sites of Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim periods. Barendra Museum in Rajshahi is one of the foremost museums specializing in history of ancient Bengal. Rajshahi is well-known for its fruit, particularly mangoes.

Geography

The district of Pabna in Bangladesh, which forms the south east corner of the Rajshahi Division, is situated between 23°48′ and 24°47′ north latitude, and between 89°02′ and 89°50′ east longitude. The Bogra District bound it on the north, while the Padma River in the south separates it from the districts of Faridpur District and Kushtia District. The mighty Jamuna River runs along its eastern border separating it from the districts of Mymensingh and Dhaka; and on the west it has a common boundary with the district of Rajshahi.

History

The origin name “ Pabna” is not found in any history. Various endeavours were made from time to time but no unanimous conclusion has been reached so far historians holding different opinions. Couningham, a renowned archaeologist, conjectured that the name Pabna might have been derived from the old kingdom Pundra or Pundrabardan, the country of pods, whose capital was at Mahasthangarh in the adjoining district of Bogra, but it has not received general acceptance of the scholars. Many folk assertions have locally taken roots and branches in search of the origin of the name of Pabna. One of these is that the area was named Pabna after a notorious dacoit of that time. But Radha Raman Saha in his History of Pabna strongly contradicts such views because he found on search nobody by this name was on the list of robbers of this district. Another popular belief is that the region of Pabna got its name from Pabnee one of the confluent streams of the river Ganges flowing by the south of this land. Perhaps this may be acceptable, because the district is intersected by rivers of varying magnitude. During the rainy season, consequent upon the rise of the rivers, and spreading of the spill water over the countryside, the villages standout as small islands in a wide sea and present the spectable of a certain quiet beauty. The Ganges and the Jamuna has special character of the countryside of the district of Pabna. A foreigner, Lovant Fraser, in his book has written very enthusiastically about the charms of the rivers of this part of the country. And the impression of Sir Joseph Hooker when he traveled along the Ganges and passing by Pabna made his way up the Jamuna: ‘ the water is clay coloured and turbid and yearly changes of its course’. Thus the river Padma was made the southern boundary of the district. In 1875 Raigang was transferred back to Pabna from Bogra and in 1879 a separate judgeship for the districts of Pabna and Bogra was created. The district is divided into two sub division is again divided into several police stations.