Cox's Bazar is a city, fishing port, tourism centre, and the headquarters of the Cox's Bazar District and Cox's Bazar Sadar Upazila in south-eastern Bangladesh. The city has a population of about 196,000. Cox's Bazar Beach is a major tourist attraction.
Administration
The city is administered by a Pourashava named Cox's Bazar Municipality. It covers an area of with 58 mahallas and 27 wards and as of 2022 had a population of nearly 200,000. Cox's Bazar is connected by road and air with the city of Chattogram.
Etymology
Cox's Bazar derives its name from Captain Hiram Cox, an officer of the British East India Company and Superintendent of Palongkee outpost. To commemorate his role in refugee rehabilitation work, a market was established and named after him.
Cox's Bazar is also known by the name Panowa, which translates literally as "yellow flower". An old name was "Palongkee".
History
During 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. 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 Indian Rebellion of 1857, Company rule in India came to an end and was replaced by the British Crown. As a result, Cox's Bazar was declared a district of the Bengal Province under the British Crown.
20th century
Just after the end of British rule in India in 1947, Cox's Bazar became part of East Pakistan. 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 (1–49~1954), was a friend who had helped him in these fundraising efforts. Engineer Chandi Charan Das was the government civil engineer who worked on all these projects.
In 1959 the municipality was turned into a town committee.
In 1971, Cox's Bazar wharf was used as a naval port by the Pakistan Navy's gunboats. This and the nearby airstrip of the Pakistan Air Force were 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 government of Bangladesh established a pilot plant at Kalatali.
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 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar arrived in Cox's Bazar District, amounting to 725,000 in October 2018; the resulting Kutupalong refugee camp became the largest refugee camp in the world.
In March 2021, a fire at the refugee camp left 15 dead and some 400 missing and displaced more than 45,000 mostly Rohingya refugees.
In 2023 Bangladesh evacuated over 50,000 people in Cox's Bazar to safe shelters as Cyclone Mocha approached.
During the July Revolution, around 10,000 tourists were stuck in Cox's Bazar, who were later transported by plane and army patrol.
Geography and climate
thumb|270px|Cox's Bazar Map from Series U542, US Army Map Service, 1955|left
Cox's Bazar is located south of the divisional headquarter city of Chittagong. Cox's Bazar town has an area of , and is bounded by Bakkhali River on the north and East, Bay of Bengal in the West, and Jhilwanj Union in the south.
The beach in Cox's Bazar has a gentle slope and with a length of and is one of the longest natural sea beaches of South East Asia.
Cox's Bazar lies on a coastal plain in the southeastern corner of Bangladesh. From above, the plain appears to bulge out into the Bay of Bengal. Along the shore is an extensive area of beach and dunes. Most of the city is built on a floodplain that is lower in elevation than the dunes, making it more susceptible to flooding due to cyclones and storm surges. The Cox's Bazar coastal plain was formed after the sea reached its present level around 6,500 years ago, with the area of the current floodplain originally forming a sediment sink that has since been gradually filled in by the Bakkhali river as well as smaller streams coming down from the hills.
The climate of Bangladesh is mostly determined by its location in the tropical monsoon climate region: high temperatures, heavy rainfall, and generally excessive humidity, with distinct seasonal variations. The climate of Cox's Bazar is mostly similar to the rest of the country, but with an even wetter southwest monsoon season due to its coastal location. The annual average temperature in Cox's Bazar is a maximum of and a minimum of . The average annual rainfall is .