Goalundo Ghat

Coordinates: 23°43′28″N 89°44′42″E / 23.72444°N 89.74500°E / 23.72444; 89.74500

Goalundo Ghat (also Goalanda and Goalondo) (Bengali: গোয়ালন্দঘাট) is a small town and pourasabha in Goalandaghat Upazila, Rajbari District, Dhaka Division, Bangladesh, South Asia. There are two railway stops one at Goalundo Ghat and one at Goalundo Bazar. The town has an area of 4.86 km² and a population of 22,000 inhabitants (2001 estimate).

Historical significance

The Eastern Bengal Railway opened the line from Kolkata to Goalundo, on the southern bank of the Padma in 1871. Goalundo was for many years a major transportation hub for travel in eastern parts of Bengal and Assam. Here is a brief on the importance of Goalundo Ghat in earlier years: “If one goes from Calcutta to Dacca the rail journey is broken at Goalundo and from there to Narayanganj is continued by steamer. The night mail from Calcutta deposits one at Goalundo in the early hours of the morning. It is situated at the junction of the Padma, or Ganges, and the Brahmaputra, and daily services of steamers connect it with the railway systems at Narayanganj and Chandpur, and with the steamer services to Madaripur, Barisal, Sylhet, and Cachar. There are also daily services of steamers up the Padma to Digha Ghat , Patna in the dry season, and Buxar in the rains, and up the Brahmaputra to Dibrugarh. From that it will be seen that Goalundo occupies a very strong strategic position in the waterways of Bengal, a position which has been made much stronger by railway development.”