Muzaffarnagar is an important industrial town with sugar, steel and paper being the major products. It has 11 sugar mills which receive sugar-cane produce from the surrounding region; more than 70% of the region's population is engaged in agriculture. The Muzaffarnagar market of Jaggery (heat-dried sugar-cane juice, called 'Gud' in local language) was once the largest in Asia.
According to Economic Research firm Indicus Analytics [1], Muzaffarnagar has the highest agricultural GDP in Uttar Pradesh.

This city was establish in 1633, by Sayyid Munawar Lashkar Ali, and named Muzaffarnagar in honour of his father, Sayyid Muzaffar Ali Khan, who was appointed ruler of this region by the Mogul Emperor Akbar [2]. The older parts of the city have a Mogul feel and many monuments of Mogul period are also spread in the surrounding villages and towns of Muzaffarnagar district.
It appears that this Janapada was a part of Harappa civilisation, for the pots and pans and other objects of the type of that era are seen occasionally still in use in many neighbouring villages. Also, according to a local tradition, the legendary Mahabharata war - between the Kauravas and the Pandavas - was fought in the fields of the present village of 'Pachenda' and their army camps were located respectively at the sites now famous as 'Kaurawali' and 'Pandavli'.
In 1901, during the British raj, it was made head quarter of Muzaffarnagar district, which was carved out of Saharanpur district, and both became part of the Meerut Division in United Provinces of Agra and Oudh