Purpose
Built heritage is a unique resource, an irreplaceable expression of the richness and diversity of our past and of the generations who have gone before us. Old Dhaka has an outstanding built heritage that is of significance not only in the local, but also in a national and regional context. But senseless urbanization and ignorance of such an important issue in the existing detailed area plan is destroying the built heritages of Dhaka. As a result, many heritage buildings of Dhaka have been destroyed and the destruction is going on unabated. Therefore, there is a need to re-examine how such destruction can be prevented. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This research aims at the identification of heritages, their assessment and classification which is utterly significant for preserving the invaluable heritages. Heritages are classified according to their present condition which will show which type of heritage needs which type of attention.
Findings
The research indicates the way how a conservation planning for heritages can be done in a systematic and logical way. It reveals the present condition of the heritage buildings which will point out the way of preservation. There is no such document available which will tell general people about the most important or rare or significant heritages, the location of these heritages, or their background information. This research addresses these all issues.
Originality/value
To date, no conservation plans were implemented for Dhaka and there are no attempts to improve Old Dhaka through an urban design. The methodological approach in this research is new and effective for conserving heritages.
Background: There is no established methodology for mapping the past territory of cities from text based historic information. As a result, the past territories of cities often remain obscure due to lack of spatial representation.
Methods:This article proposes a GIS based methodology to study the spatial development of cities in early times. It focuses on 'historical geography' which has been evolved as an interdisciplinary field bridging the divide between history and geography. Analyzing different 'named places' mentioned in the historical sources it first tries to develop a clear understanding about the physical development of Dhaka during Mughal period, which was then the capital of Bengal. Later it georeferenced those named places and applied GIS based techniques to map the past urban territory.
Results:The result shows the spatial development of Dhaka in Mughal period and how it undergone changes in pre and post Mughal era. The area of Dhaka in Mughal period was quantified 12.93 km 2 which was comparable with any other top cities of the world in the 17th century. Application of GIS also extends the scope of the study to explain spatial pattern of the localities and the geological aspects of early urban development of Dhaka.
Conclusions:Analyzing different historic sources of information (both texts and maps), it has tried to define the past extent of Mughal Dhaka which has been missing till now. The methodological prospects of this study and its application will not only be limited in context of Dhaka, but for other cities as well.
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