This chapter makes a case for Dhaka as a particular instantiation of the city that embodies and mobilises a collective subjective life. It offers an extended exposition, introducing the specific historical, demographic, administrative, and social context in which to understand the city. To this end, the chapter introduces three dominant social types of residents whose imaginative practices form the basis of the book’s articulation about the city as an affective domain. Three social types of residents—Dhakaiyas, the indigenes, long-term residents, and migrants—are crucial for the study of the urban imaginary because of the diverse forms of attachment unique to the respective types. It then discusses Dhaka’s vicissitudes through history, especially its volatile shifts in status from the capital of Bengal under the Mughals to the capital of East Bengal and Assam under British rule, then as the provincial capitalDhakacapital of East Pakistan after the partition of British India, and finally as the capitalDhakacapital of an independent country, Bangladesh, as having a significant bearing on the general imaginary of the city. It also highlights the continuous surge of local and global ascriptions often at odds with the everyday reality of the city, making it an intriguing psycho-geographic space for exploration.