Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Nilkhet, Bangladesh

Nilkhet Book Market. Photo by Aashaa-Wikimedia

Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Nilkhet, Bangladesh

Nilkhet is a neighborhood in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Nilkhet is located between Dhaka University to the east, Mirpur Road and New Market to the west and Elephant Road to the north.

The name Nilkhet implies that the area may have been used for indigo cultivation in earlier times, but today it has a completely different identity. Nilkhet has been the centre of the second-hand book trade in Dhaka.

Nilkhet book market has over 1300 bookshops, all kinds of books at cheap prices. The market has become essential to Dhaka students because it supplies them with reading and research materials.

The market is always very crowded and it takes time to browse through the book to get the unique books you are sometimes looking for. There are hotels in the market where you can enjoy good and cheap food after looking for books.

Thousand of people from different places visit the Nilkhet to find their necessary daily books such people include students looking for academic materials.

Learn more about Nilkhet in these top 10 fascinating facts. 

1. Nilkhet Book Market Serves the Major Surrounding Institutions

Nilkhet market is a major source of academic material for city students because its surrounded by institutions.

The market is near Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka University, Dhaka Medical College, Dhaka College, College of Home Economics and Eden College.

Students from these institutions can find all known stationary and all kind of books which contribute greatly to their educational success.

2. The Brief History of Nilkhet Book Market

Street shop of second hand books at Nilkhet, Dhaka. Photo by Mashkawat.ahsan-Wikimedia

The Nilkhet book history is 40 years; four young booksellers started selling second-hand books and magazines on the pavement outside the Balak Cinema hall.

The market then accelerated and became a popular market for books for the extreme demand of surrounding educational institutes. The market now has over 1700 shops, including Kuccha Bazar and 315 years Baqusha Mosque with a graveyard inside.

The location of the book market is one of the highest commercial places in Dhaka and the Maximum valuable land today. Today the market serves the people of Dhaka. However, the market is small to serve the huge number of users who come to buy books.

3. Nilkhet is the Best Place For Old Books

Nilkhet is famous for bookshops. Thousands of shops sell books and stationary, these books aren’t original, but they are of good quality.

Here you can find very old and rare books which are of the original print. However, it would be best if you browsed through their huge collection to find the rare one you are looking for.

4. Nilkhet Book Market is the Largest Book Market in Bangladesh

Street shop of second hand books at Nilkhet, Dhaka. Photo by Mashkawat.ahsan-Wikimedia

The book market is the largest in Bangladesh to find all kinds of books and books of different languages. The books are sold at cheap prices and are sources of books for many generations of Dhaka City.

The market is always densely populated, but if you dig in, you will find rare collections of books, fiction, journals and magazines. There are also food stalls at the market and the prices of the foods are cheap.

5. Nilkhet has Many Restaurant One Can Enjoy Meals

Nilkhet is a good place to eat local tasty foods like tehari or biriyani. The food has cheap prices, which makes it affordable to all.

For example, beef Tehari is so popular and high in demand that everyone who goes to Nilkhet takes time to taste it and is sold at reasonable prices. Also, there is good biriyani, local test and good prices.

6. There Are All Kinds of Book at Nilkhet

Nilkhet Book Market. Photo by Aashaa-Wikimedia

Nilkhet offers all kinds of books, from textbooks, notes for all classes, guidebooks for all competitive exams, and old and latest editions of fiction and non-fiction by world-famous writers to used, rare books.

At the book market, there are magazines of varied types to journals from home and abroad, and you will get everything here. Nilkhet has come to be an integral part of the city’s education.

Even in the era of Google and free downloads, this market continues to attract students and bookworms of all ages. Many of the books are second-hand books but are fairly in good condition.

The Nilkhet book market has over 400 bookshops and is a buzz all the time with people stumbling across a book they are looking for. For university students, it is always the best place to get books. Many of their texts and reference books authored by international writers are available at affordable prices.

7. Nilkhet Book Market Operating Days

Nilkhet market remains open all week through from 10 am to 9 pm. The market and its surrounding areas remain closed on Tuesdays.

The book market remains closed on national holidays like International Mother Language Day every 21st of February, Independence day (26th March), Victory Day (16th December) and National Mourning Day (15th August).

8. Nilkhet Fire Tragedy

On February 22, 2022, a massive fire broke at the southern part of Nilkhet book Market and spread to the center of the market. It took around two hours of 10 firefighting units to bring the fire under control. 

No one was seriously injured during the fire. It caused a large amount of loss to the book shop owners. Many books were burnt and others were destroyed by water used by firefighters to put off the fire.

9. Nilkhet Provide Auxiliary Services to Students

Nilkhet has many shops that provide auxiliary student services, such as word-processing, photocopying and bookbinding.

These services are a common rite of passage for nearly all students of nearby universities during their undergraduate and postgraduate years.

10. Nilkhet is Visited by English Language Readers

The city’s English-language readers regularly patronize Nilkhet. They search for foreign books, journals and comics that are either unavailable elsewhere or only available new at a prohibitive price.

Thousands of people regularly visit Nilkhet book stores to find their necessary daily books. It contains several dozen shops that deal in used books and magazines, especially English-language material published in the west.