Mahasthangarh: Bangladesh's Oldest City

One of the subcontinent’s oldest cities in the east is still telling its story 2,300 years after the Mauryans built this magnificent provincial capital in what is now north-west Bangladesh. Identified as the glorious city of Pundranagara, it is known as Mahasthangarh today and is situated in what was earlier East Bengal.

Mahasthangarh is Bangladesh’s oldest-known city, an archaeological site 200 km north of Dhaka on the banks of the Karatoya River. The site goes back to the 3rd century BCE, to the height of the Mauryan Empire, whose capital was Pataliputra in present-day Patna, the capital of Bihar in Northern India. And what a sight it must have been!