Ghazipur

Ghazipur stands on the Ganges east of Varanasi. Tradition attributes its foundation to a warrior named Sayyid Masud, who is said to have defeated a local raja and established a town here in the fourteenth century. Under the Lodi sultans it grew as a provincial centre, with a fort and new neighbourhoods built for settlers arriving from elsewhere.

Sikandar Lodi appointed Nasir Khan Lohani governor around 1494. During the struggles that followed the Lodi dynasty's fall, Humayun occupied Ghazipur in 1527, though Nasir Khan soon returned. The town later became the capital of a Mughal sarkar in Allahabad province. In 1727 its territory was leased to Saadat Ali Khan, the first Nawab of Awadh. Almost a century later, the East India Company established an opium factory at Ghazipur in 1820.