Map - Duliajan (Duliāgaon)

Duliajan is an industrial town of Dibrugarh district in the Indian state of Assam located in the upper north-east corner of India. The town is about 45 km east of Dibrugarh City. It is particularly known for its oil related industry, Oil India Limited, one of the country's largest oil and gas companies. There is also other central government owned companies like B.C.P.L. GDU Station, N.E.E.P.C.O., D.N.P.L., LPG Plant and the Shivani company which is India's largest private company for drilling. Assam Gas Company Limited, which carries out business related to natural gas in India owned by the Government of Assam, is also located in this township.

Duliajan derived its name from "Dulia" meaning "palanquin-bearers" of the Ahom kings and "Jan" meaning "a river stream". The Ahom kings, also known as Swargadeos, were very fond of hunting in the Upper Dihing forests. The Swargadeos would come by boats from their capital of Gargaon and Rangpur (in Sivasagar district) down the Dikhow river to the mighty Brahmaputra, then row upstream, enter the Dihing river and halt at the mouth of the stream near Tipling-Ghat in present-day Duliajan. The stream was a guiding pathway for the palanquin bearers of the Swargadeos. Thus, when a new oil town was constructed in this area, to honour the palanquin bearers, it became a natural choice for the historical name of Duliajan.

As per another legend, Dulia khel (a sub-community of Ahom) first settled on the bank of a small rivulet Duriajan which is in the village of Kachari Pathar. This Duriajan was used by the Dulia community and gradually people started calling the rivulet Duliajan. The entire town that mushroomed around the rivulet was then named after the same water body. After the Ahom king Suhanfa was killed in a conspiracy, according to prevalent custom those days, the ministers of Suhanfa’s cabinet selected his son Supinfa as his successor. Immediately after ascending the throne, Supinfa investigated the killing of his father and found one of his minister Laturban and his sons as the main conspirators. Swargadeo Supimfa then ordered that Laturban and his sons be beheaded for the heinous crime. Accordingly, on the banks of a small river, far away from the Ahom capital, the order was carried out. As the place was far from the capital and near to a river bank, the place came to be known as "Duroijan" where in the Assamese language duroi means "far distant" and jan means "rivulet". It is said from "Duraijan" the word Duliajan came in focus.

There is no official record about the exact date of declaration of the oil town as Duliajan. But it started initially with a nucleus of experienced personnel drawn from the Assam Oil Company (AOC) as well as Burmah Oil Company (BOC), the pioneer organizations of Digboi Oilfield. Oil India formally set up its own organization on 1 January 1962 to look after all aspects of drilling and exploration operations, with its headquarters at Duliajan, then known as Zaloni in the Nahorkatiya area.

The establishment of Duliajan oil town may be said to have brought about an era of petroleum industries in the district of Lakhimpur which then comprised the present districts of Dibrugarh and Tinisukia on the south bank and Lakhimpur and Dhemaji on the north bank of the river Brahmaputra. Since its establishment, this fast-growing town has been playing a vital role in the state’s as well as country’s economy.