According to Sir John Houlton, however, the town takes its name from the small villages of Okni and Hazari – shown on old maps as Ocunhazry.

[citation needed] The last syllable in its name may have originated from a mango grove which formed a camping ground for troops and travelers marching along a military road from Kolkata to Varanasi, constructed in 1783 and the following years.

It was only with the accession of Akbar to the throne of Delhi in 1557 that Muslim influence penetrated Jharkhand, then known to the Mughals as Kokrah.

In 1585, Akbar sent a force under the command of Shahbaj Khan to reduce the Raja of Chotanagpur to the position of a tributary.

This necessitated an expedition in 1616 by Ibrahim Khan Fateh Jang, the Governor of Bihar and brother of Queen Noorjehan.

He was imprisoned for 12 years but was later released and reinstated on the throne after he had shown his ability in distinguishing a real diamond from a fake one.

During the reign of Muhammad Shah (1719–1748), Sarballand Khan, the Governor of then Bihar, marched against the Raja of Chotanagpur and obtained his submission.

In 1735 Alivardi Khan had difficulty in enforcing the payment of the annual tribute of Rs.12,000 from the Raja of Ramgarh, as agreed to by the latter according to the terms settled with Fakhruddoula.

During the Muslim period, the main estates in the district were Ramgarh, Kunda, Chai and Kharagdiha.

The parganas of Ramgarh, Kharagdiha, Kendi and Kunda became parts of the South-West Frontier Agency and were formed into a division named Hazaribagh as the administrative headquarters.

In 1854 the designation of South-West Frontier Agency was changed to Chota Nagpur Division, composed of five districts - Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Palamau, Manbhum, and Singhbhum.

The military cantonment, south-east of the town, flourished until 1874, when, after an outbreak of enteric fever in 1874, the troops were mostly withdrawn, except for a small detachment to mind the penitentiary.

Hazaribagh Central Jail housed many leaders of the Indian freedom movement, including Dr. Rajendra Prasad, later the first President of India.

[8] A small but effective Bengali community including, Mukherjee, Ghosh, Mallick and Aikats settled at Hazaribagh in the 19th century when the area was in Bengal Presidency and the British administration was looking for people with English education.

Rai Bhadur Jadunath Mukherjee was foremost in establishing the Keshav Hal and Library in the Town and was its first President.

Manmathanath Dasgupta, a Brahmo missionary spent many years in Hazaribagh working amongst the downtrodden.

Doctors such as Mandindra Bhushan Banerjee (Panna Babu), Bikash Kumar Sen, Sambhu Nath Roy and Benoy Chandra Chatterjee were prominent personalities.

The noted Bengali author and writer for many Hindi films like Sujata, Subodh Ghosh, was born and brought up in Hazaribagh.

Keshub Chunder Sen, the great Brahmo Leader, accompanied by Trailokyanath Sanyal, visited Hazaribagh in 1874 to recoup his health.

[11] As per the 2011 Census of India, Hazaribagh Nagar Parishad had a total population of 142,489, of which 74,132 were males and 68,357 females.

A few Bengalis are the followers of Brahmo Samaj, established up by Keshub Chandra Sen. Hazaribagh was upgraded to a municipal corporation in June 2015 by adding the area and population of 19 adjoining villages.

Among the social, recreational and cultural facilities, it had 1 special school for disabled, 1 orphanage home, 3 working women's hostels, 1 old age home, 2 stadiums, 5 cinema theatres, 3 auditorium/ community halls, 3 public library and reading rooms.

[citation needed] Parallel to this Reverend Father John Moore, an Australian Jesuit missionary, set up St. Xavier's School in 1952.

[citation needed] East India's largest training centre is here in the forest with hilly terrain.

[citation needed] Krishna Ballabh Sahay (born in Sheikhpura but had land in Khadhaiya, a village in Tandwa Block), the renowned freedom fighter and subsequently chief minister of Bihar, belonged to Hazaribagh.

In the elections for the first Lok Sabha held in 1951, Nageshwar Prasad Sinha of Congress won the Hazaribagh East seat, and Baboo Ram Narayan Singh, an Independent candidate, won the Hazaribagh West seat.

Bhubneshwar Prasad Mehta of the Communist Party of India won the seat in 2004 with the help of seat-sharing of the UPA.

Jayant Sinha, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the son of former Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, won the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, defeating the closest rival Saurabh Narayan Singh of the Indian National Congress by a huge margin of 1,59,128 votes.

A scion of the erstwhile kingdom of Ramgarh Raj; Rajkumar Udaybhan Narain Singh is the director of J.I.A.D.A.

Ranchi is connected with Bengaluru, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata and Patna by regular flights.