Geography of West Bengal districts north of the Ganges i.e., Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda are together termed as North Bengal. The capital and largest city of the state is Kolkata – the third-largest urban agglomeration and the seventh-largest city in India.Asansol is the second largest city & urban agglomeration in West Bengal after Kolkata. Siliguri is an economically important city, strategically located in the northeastern Siliguri Corridor (Chicken's Neck) of India. Other major cities and towns in West Bengal are Howrah, Durgapur, Raniganj, Haldia, Jalpaiguri, Kharagpur, Burdwan, Darjeeling, Midnapore, and Malda. Darjeeling Himalayan hill region is
Bankipur (Bengal) Bankipur (Bengal) Bankipur was an ancient village on the Hugli river located in what is now West Bengal, north of Barrackpore, a little north of Ishapore. It is now a suburb of Barrackpore and is not to be confused with Bankipur city (West Bengal) located on the coast (at 21.76° N and 87.86° E). Bankipur was famous as the principal settlement of the Ostend Company, the one great effort made by the Austrian Empire to secure a foothold in India. The Ostend Company was formed in 1722–1723, and with a capital of less than a million sterling founded two settlements,