Gaibandha

Gaibandha () is a town and District headquarter of Gaibandha District in northern Bangladesh. It is a centre of commerce and trade of the Gaibandha District and is located under the Rangpur Division. The area of the city is approximately 10.54 square kilometres.
It consists of nine wards. It is certified as a "ka" (A) category Paurasava(municipality).
Name.
The city is named after its eponymous district. There are two opinions about the name of Gaibandha. The most famous opinion is: around five thousand years ago, capital of Matsya Kingdom of King Birat was in Gobindaganj area. "Matsa" means fish and "desh" means country(মাছের দেশ). Fishes were abundant in his kingdom so the term "Matsa Desh" was created. According to Mahabharata, king Birat had 60,000 cows which were frequently robbed by robbers. To protect his cattle from robbers, king Birat established a huge cattle-shed. The cattle were tied up alongside the rivers of this area. "Gai" means "cow" and "Bandha" means "to tie up". From this reason the area was called Gaibandha.
Areas.
Area: 6 upazilas of Gaibandha district (1) Sadar (2) Sundarganj (3) Sadullapur (4) Palashbari (5) Gobindaganj (6) Fulchhari (6) Saghata upazila respectively. It consists of 72 unions, 1101 mouzas and 2 municipalities (Sadar and Gobindaganj). The total area of the district is 2179.28 sq km (with river area of 106.6 sq km) and the population is 19,49,284 as per 1991 census report.