Hajipur

Hajipur is the headquarters and largest city of Vaishali district in the Indian state of Bihar. It lies on the north bank of the Ganges, only about 10 kilometres from Patna, which stands on the south bank, and the 5.75 kilometre Mahatma Gandhi Setu bridge links the two. It is the sixteenth most populous city of Bihar and, after Patna, the fastest developing, largely because of its closeness to the capital. Hajipur is known for cultivating bananas, and it is traditionally said to be named after its founder Haji Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, whose tomb is called Haji-Pir. It became the headquarters of Vaishali when that district was separated from Muzaffarpur in 1972. The city covers 19.64 square kilometres and had a population of 1.47 lakh at the 2011 census.