In 1660, Mughal prince Shah Shuja took shelter in the Kingdom of Arakan to escape from Mir Jumla II.

While heading to Arakan, he stayed in a beautiful hilly place (present-day Chunati) between Chittagong and Cox's Bazar for a few days.

At the time of departure, he engraved an iron bar in that place as a sign.

It is thought that because of engraving iron bar by Shah Shuja the area is called 'Lohagara' since 'Loha' means 'iron'.

It has 52,873 households and a total area of 258.87 square kilometres (99.95 sq mi).