History of Netrakona

In 1787 the British established the Mymensingh District as an administrative unit. Today’s Netrakona District was included, as well as Kishoreganj, Jamalpur, Sherpur and Tangail. In 1826, Netrakona was called Nator kona. Big landlords, called zamindars, who came from a region called nator, near Rajshahi, leased the land from the British. Kona means ‘corner’ and so  the place was called ‘nator  corner’. However, these zamindars were soon forced to leave by a protest movement of the farmers because they exploited the people. They were followed by zamindars from Gouripur under Mymensingh District who were Hindus. Those initiated the construction of a  kali temple in Netrakona town and thus the name of the city changed into Kaliganj. Ganj means boat launch. Nevertheless, the British stuck to the name Nator kona that by the time has become Netrakona. It was not until 1882, that the  status of Netrakona Sadar, Kendua and Durgapur, an ancient kingdom, was uplifted to that of a `Mohokuma`, an administrative unit between Thana and District level. 

The Netrakona Sadar municipality was founded in  1887 and nine years later, Barhatta and Khaliajuri, which were only Unions before, got the status of a Thana, which means that a police station was established. Today, they are two out of ten Upazilas (another name for Thana), under Netrakona District. Latter one achieved its independence from Mymensingh on 1^st February 1984 and now comprises 85 Unions.