Kaptai Lake

Kaptai Lake is the largest man-made lake in Bangladesh, a body of water created in 1961 when the Kaptai Dam was built on the Karnaphuli River as part of a hydroelectric project that would bring electricity to the Chittagong Hill Tracts and beyond.

The lake flooded a broad valley in the hills, submerging 54,000 acres of farmland and displacing the communities who had lived there — primarily Chakma and other indigenous groups — 100,000 people in total, including the palace of the Chakma king, reportedly still visible underwater on clear days when the sun angles right and the lake is particularly still.

The scale of the lake — 220 square kilometres — is striking when you are on it: hills rise from the water on all sides, forested and uninhabited except for the occasional cluster of boats and fishing nets, and the sense of enclosure is unlike anything in the flat delta country.

The colour of the water changes with the time of day and the season, from bright turquoise in the mornings when the surface is still to deep blue-green in the afternoon when a wind gets up and the surface breaks, and at sunset the lake turns a remarkable amber and gold that photographers come specifically to capture.

The hanging bridge at Kaptai has become one of the most recognisable landmarks in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a swaying span strung across a narrow section of the lake where the current runs fastest and the water is deepest, crossing it on foot is an experience in controlled mild anxiety.

The indigenous communities of the hill tracts — Chakma, Tripura, Marma, and others — maintain distinct cultural traditions that are visibly different from the Bengali lowland culture, and their markets, festivals and daily routines follow patterns that are tied to the land and the lake rather than to the agricultural calendar of the plains.

The lake is the setting for a pattern of life that is inseparable from the water: fishing with both traditional and modern nets, seasonal harvesting of the lake's resources, and the small wooden boats that are the only practical transport across the lake in the dry season and the only way to reach the villages on the islands and the foreshore.

The lake also supports a growing domestic tourism trade, particularly in the winter months when the weather is dry and the water is calm, and the boat ride from Rangamati town to the deep interior of the lake reveals a landscape quite unlike the Bangladesh of the river deltas and rice plains.

Kaptai Lake offers a landscape fundamentally unlike the rest of Bangladesh — hills, still water, forest — a visual and cultural contrast that surprises visitors who arrive expecting only the flat delta.

The lake's creation story is inseparable from the history of the indigenous communities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, making it a place where landscape, history and culture are genuinely intertwined.

The hanging bridge, the fishing communities and the boat journey into the interior are experiences that reward slowing down and staying for a few days rather than rushing through on a day trip.