Kharagpur

Kharagpur () is a semi-planned urban agglomeration and a major industrial city in the Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Kharagpur subdivision and the largest city of the district. It is located 120 km west of Kolkata. Kharagpur holds the oldest and biggest Indian Institute of Technology namely IIT Kharagpur. It has one of the largest railway workshops in India. Kharagpur Junction contains the fourth longest railway platform in the world (1072.5 m) and is the headquarter of the Kharagpur Division of the South Eastern Railways.

== History == Kharagpur received its name from the twelfth king of the Mallabhum dynasty, Kharga Malla, when he conquered it. Kharagpur was a part of the Hijli Kingdom and ruled by Hindu Odia rulers as a feudatory under Gajapati Kings of Odisha. Historians claim that in the 16th century, Kharagpur was still a small village surrounded by dense forests. The village was on high rocky barren land. The only inhabited settlement near Kharagpur was Hijli, a small island village on the banks of the Rasulpur River, in the delta of the Bay of Bengal. It developed into a port town in 1687. Hijli was also a province and it existed until 1886. It covered parts of Bengal and Orissa. It had important towns like Tamluk, Panskura, and Debra, along with the Keleghai and Haldi rivers on the north, south, and east sides bounded by Bay of Bengal and Kharagpur, Keshiary, Dantan, and Jaleswar on the west.