[5] Ghazipur lies close to the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border, about 80 km (50 mi) east of Varanasi.

[6] As per verbal and folk history,[7] Ghazipur was covered with dense forest during the Vedic era and it was a place for the ashrams of saints during that period.

[11] A 30 ft. high Ashoka Pillar is situated in Latiya, a village 30 km away from the city near Zamania Tehsil is a symbol of Mauryan Empire.

[12] In the report of tours in that area of 1871–72 Alexander Cunningham wrote, "The village receives its name from a stone lat, or monolith".

The local tradition that the city was once called "Gadhipura" after a legendary king named Gadhi is probably spurious, but old building fragments found along the riverbank point to the existence of a settlement here, and a mound may represent the site of an old fort.

Sayyid Masud, who was now given the title Malik us-Sadat Ghazi, founded a city on the site of the second battle and called it Ghazipur.

[14]: 157–8 Legends aside, Ghazipur's first mention in contemporary sources is c. 1494, when Sikandar Lodi appointed Nasir Khan Lohani as the city's governor.

At first, Nasir Khan stayed loyal to Sikandar's son Ibrahim Lodi, but he was defeated by an army led by one Mian Mustafa, which then looted Ghazipur.

[14]: 160–1 During Akbar's early rule, Ghazipur was held by Ali Quli Khan Zaman, who also founded the nearby town of Zamania.

Under Shah Jahan, as well as during Aurangzeb's early reign, Nawab Sufi Bahadur was governor of Ghazipur, he also build the jama masjid at Nawali..

At some point after Farrukhsiyar's death in 1719, sarkar Ghazipur was part of a large territory granted to one Murtaza Khan as a jagir.

Rustam Ali Khan had no interest in managing the territories himself, and someone named Mansa Ram ended up becoming the actual administrator.

Ghazipur was given to Nawab Sheikh Abdullah, son of Muhammad Qasim a zamindar of Dharwar, while the remainder was given to Mansa Ram.

Sheikh Abdullah left several monuments in Ghazipur: the Chihal Satun palace, a mosque and imambara, a masonry tank, and a large garden known as the Nawab's Bagh.

His jurisdiction was expanded to include Azamgarh.in 1757, and Balwant Singh, son of Mansa Ram, got the control of Ghazipur instead.

His successor, Mahip Narayan Singh, was essentially stripped of all administrative powers by the British, who established Ghazipur district in 1818.

[15] Specifically in Yusufpur, a notable family would be the Ansari sheiks who had held such offices from the 1500s all the way till the late 20th century.

[15][16] In 1862, Syed Ahmed Khan established the Scientific Society of Ghazipur (which was later transferred to Aligarh), the first of its kind in India, to propagate modern Western knowledge of science, technology and industry.

It was a departure from the past in the sense that education made a paradigm shift from traditional humanities and related disciplines to the new field of science and agriculture.

The main road continued east through Razaganj and Begampur to the Ghazipur Ghat railway station on the eastern city limit.

[10][25] The road that starts at the Nawab-ki-Chahar-diwari tomb and runs past the mosque leads, after 10 km, to a matha devoted to Pavhari Baba.

[26] Cornwallis is famous for his role in the American Revolutionary War, and then for his time as Governor-General of India, being said to have laid the true foundation of British rule.

His tomb, overlooking the Ganges, is a heavy dome supported on 12 Doric columns above a cenotaph carved by John Flaxman.

[10][26] Close to ChitNath Ghat, Pavhari Baba ashram[27] is a place of interest for Swami Vivekananda followers.

[30] It also serves the unusual role of being the secure repository for illegal opium seizures in India—and correspondingly, an important office of the Narcotics Control Bureau of India is located in Ghazipur.

Because it is a government industry, the factory is administered from New Delhi but a general manager oversees operations in Ghazipur.

[30] The factory has its own residential accommodation for its employees, and is situated across the banks of river Ganges from the main city of Ghazipur.

[30] Rudyard Kipling, who was familiar with opium both medicinally and recreationally,[31] visited the Ghazipur factory in 1888 and published a description of its workings in The Pioneer on 16 April 1888.

In interview, Ghosh stresses how much of the wealth of the British Empire stemmed from the often unsavoury opium trade, with Ghazipur as one of its centers, but he is also amazed at the scale of the present-day operation.