Jessore (, ), officially Jashore, is a city of

Jessore District Jessore District, List of renamed places in Bangladesh, officially Jashore District (; ), is a Districts of Bangladesh, district in southwestern Bangladesh. It is bordered by India to the west, Khulna District, Khulna and Satkhira District, Satk ...

Khulna Division Khulna Division () is the second largest of the eight divisions of Bangladesh. It has an area of and a population of 17,416,645 at the 2022 Bangladesh census (preliminary returns). Its headquarters and largest city is Khulna city in Khulna Dist ...

. It lies in southwestern

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

. It is home to the first flight training school of the Bangladeshi Air Force, established in 1971. Jessore city consists of 9 wards and 73 mahalls. Jashore municipality was established in 1864. The area of the town is 21.15 km². It has a population of about 298,000 according to the record of Jessore municipality. Jessore also has a domestic airport named as

Jessore Airport Jashore Airport is a domestic airport in Jashore, Bangladesh that is operated and maintained by the Civil Aviation Authority. It is also used by the Bangladesh Air Force as part of ''BAF Matiur Rahman Base'' and training airfield for the Ban ...

Name

The present-day city of Jashore was originally known as Kasba. The current name was originally acquired from the name of the surrounding ''

pargana Pargana or parganah, also spelt pergunnah, equivalent to Mohallah as a subunit of Subah (Suba), was a type of former administrative division in the Indian subcontinent during the time of the Delhi Sultanate, Mughal and British Colonial empire ...

'' and ''

zamindar A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian was the official language; ''zamindar'' is the ...

i'' estate of Jashore, or ''Jesar'', when Kasba became its capital. The district's name was also applied to its two previous capitals, which are now known as

Ishwaripur Ishwaripur is a village in Shyamnagar Upazila, Satkhira District, Bangladesh. It has several historical sites, including the Jeshoreshwari Kali Temple, the triangular Chanda Bhairab Temple, the five-domed Tenga Mosque, and a Hammamkhana built i ...

and

Murali Murali may refer to: People Mononyms *Murali (Malayalam actor) (1954–2009), name of Malayalam film actor Muraleedharan Pillai, who appeared in ''Neythukaran'' and ''Aadhaaram'' *Murali (Tamil actor) (1964–2010), Tamil actor who appeared ...

, respectively, so early mentions of jashore are not referring to the modern town. The name "Jashore" is traditionally explained as a derivation from the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

name ''Yaśohara'', meaning "glory-depriving". The name originally applied to the town now called Ishwaripur, which was founded sometime after 1573-74 by Vikramaditya, father of

Pratapaditya Pratapaditya Guha was a rebellious Kayashtha zamindar of Jessore of lower Bengal, before being defeated by the Mughal Empire. He was eulogized by 19th and 20th century Bengali historians as a resistor against Mughal in Jessore but the statements ...

. According to J. Westland, "glory-depriving" may have been used in the sense of "so glorious that it makes other cities seem humble in comparison". An inscription at Kanhaynagar records a similar epithet for that place: ''ruchira-ruchi-hara'', or "depriving of beauty that which is beautiful".

History

The ''

Ain-i Akbari The ''Ain-i-Akbari'' (), or the "Administration of Akbar", is a 16th-century detailed document regarding the administration of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, written by his court historian, Abu'l Fazl, in the Persian language. It forms V ...

'' lists a pargana of Jesar as part of '' sarkar''

Khalifatabad The Mosque City of Bagerhat (; historically known as Khalifatabad) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Bagerhat District, Bangladesh. It contains 360 mosques, public buildings, mausoleums, bridges, roads, water tanks and other public buildings co ...

. This Jesar is a reference to today's Ishwaripur. Ishwaripur is also the Jesar mentioned in the '' Bahāristān-i Ghaibī''. The zamindars of Jesar later shifted their capital to Murali and then to nearby Kasba, and the name "Jessore" was transferred to each of them in succession. One or both of these shifts had happened by around 1660, whe
Mattheus van den Broucke's map of Bengal
shows a "Jessoor" in the same spot as today's city; however, because Murali and Kasba are so close together, it's uncertain which one specifically is being shown here. It was the capital of

, the one and only Hindu ruler of the 12 Bhuiyas of Bengal, who had also famously fought against Mughal intrusion in East Bengal. He was defeated by Mughal forces and his territories were annexed into the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

. It was the first district to be freed and taken back by Bengali rule in the

Liberation War Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...

, on 8 December 1971.

Demographics

According to the 2022 Bangladesh census, Jessore city had a population of 209,330. According to the

2011 Bangladesh census In 2011, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics conducted a national census in Bangladesh, which provided a provisional estimate of the total population of the country as 142,319,000. The previous decennial census was the 2001 census. Data were reco ...

, Jessore city had 45,930 households and a population of 201,796. 33,717 (16.71%) were under 10 years of age. Jessore had a literacy rate (age 7 and over) of 76.44%, compared to the national average of 51.8%, and a sex ratio of 926 females per 1000 males.

Education

Jashore University of Science and Technology Jashore University of Science and Technology (), commonly known and abbreviated as JUST (), is a government-financed public university in Bangladesh. JUST is located at Sadhinata Sarak in Jessore Sadar Upazila, in Khulna Division. Its postal co ...

* Jessore Medical College *

Army Medical College, Jessore Army Medical College, Jashore (AMCJ) is a military medical school, established in 2014. It is located in Jashore Cantonment, in Jashore, Bangladesh. It is affiliated with Bangladesh University of Professionals. Academic activities began in Janu ...

Michael Madhusudan College Michael Madhusudan College (), in Jessore District, is one of the largest educational institutions in Khulna Division, Bangladesh. The college is named after famed educationalist and intellectual Michael Madhusudan Dutt. It has about 26,000 stu ...

* BAF Shaheen College Jashore * Jessore Zilla School * Cantonment College, Jashore * Jashore Government city college

Transport

The city is the transport hub of the district and southern Bangladesh. To the north it is connected by national highway N7 to

Jhenaidah Jhenaidah () is a city in the Khulna Division of south-western Bangladesh. Jhenaidah is the headquarters of Jhenaidah Sadar Upazila and Jhenaidah District. The city has a population of about 140,000, making it the 34th largest city in Banglades ...

, about away. N702 runs northeast to Magura. To the east it is connected by national highway N806 to Narail, about away. N7 continues southeast to divisional headquarters

Khulna Khulna (, ) is the third-largest city in Bangladesh, after Dhaka and Chittagong. It is the administrative centre of the Khulna District and the Khulna Division. It is the divisional centre of 10 districts of the division. Khulna is also the seco ...

, about away. Regional highway R755 runs south to Chuknagar on the N760 between Satkhira and Khulna. N706 runs west to

Benapole Benapole () is a town at Sharsha Upazila in the Jessore District of Bangladesh. The Petrapole Customs station of India is situated across the border and since 1947, many people have travelled between what is now Bangladesh and India through Ben ...

, away, on the border with India. Jessore Junction railway station is on the main line connecting Darshana and Khulna. In July 2023, it was served by between 8 and 12 intercity trains a day.

served over 19 thousand passengers in December 2022. It is located in the western part of the city, from downtown, and maintains scheduled passenger flights to Dhaka.

Climate

Notes

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Khulna Division Municipalities of Bangladesh