Southern Pakistan is more or less a rectangle, longer west to east, with a droop to the southeast, and an indent in the west. Central Pakistan is also vaguely rectangular but with its long side oriented southwest to northeast. This second rectangle is connected to the somewhat larger southern one's northeast. Northernmost Pakistan is an east-turning twist, attached to the central rectangle's northeast side(1).
The center cord of the nation is the Indus River system(2). The river enters Pakistan from India(3), flowing northwest between ranges of the Himalaya Mountains. It stays centered in the nation's northern twist, turning southwest. It leaves the mountains when it enters the central rectangle. At this point it receives the Kabul(4) on its right, which emerges through mountains from Afghanistan. Further southwest its course becomes multi-threaded, as is the system of rivers joining it on its left: the Punjab(5). The Indus ends in a broad delta.
Southwestern Pakistan is the only part of the nation beyond the Indus and its fringing mountains and deserts. It is a continuance of Iranian topography: a narrow coastal plain; mountains north of it; and an arid plateau beyond those mountains.
Three deserts are found near the Indus: the Thal, between it and the Punjab; the Thar, southeast of it and the Punjab; and the Rann of Kutch--a marshy desert on the Indian border and east of the delta.
The highest mountains are in the Hindu Kush in the north and northwest, and in the Himalayas. Tirich Mir, on the Afghan border, reaches above 7,500 meters, and K2(6), along the Chinese(7) border, is the world's second tallest peak--exceeding 8,500 meters.
More than 140 million people live here, most of them in the flatlands. The majority speak languages in the dialect continuum of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Any division of such a continuum is arbitrary, but linguists typically recognize Sindhi and Western Panjabi(8) as its two Pakistan-centered languages. A majority(9) speak Western Panjabi. More than one in ten speak Sindhi. Almost one in ten speak Urdu, another language in the continuum(10). Urdu is widely learned as a second language since it is used in government. Many people also learn English, the former colonial language.
After Western Panjabi, Pashto has the most number of first language speakers--almost three in every 20 Pakistanis. It, however, is an Iranian language, only distantly related to the other main languages.
The remainder of Pakistanis--almost one in ten--speak a miscellany of languages.
About 19 in 20 Pakistanis are Moslem, the majority(11) Sunni, a minority(12) Shi'i. The remaining five percent have a variety of religions.
There are eight cities of over a million in Pakistan. The largest is the former capital, Karachi, with 12 million people.
The second largest city--with six and a half million residents--is Lahore. This legendarily ancient city has served as a capital for several empires--first the Ghaznevids and last the Sikhs. Its greatest architectural legacy is from its service as the Moghol capital. It is in the Punjab, not far from the Indian border.
The third largest metropolitan area--with three million--is Rawalpindi. Included is the national capital of Islamabad. This is a 'forward' capital, situated not from from the violently disputed border with India.
Faisalabad(13) has more than two and a half million residents, and is known as the "Manchester of Asia"; it is the textile center of Pakistan's Punjab. Its clock tower, said to be a memorial to Queen Victoria, is the urban center piece.
Gujranwala(14), north of Lahore in Punjab, has more than two million metropolitan residents. It is the birthplace of Ranjit Singh, former ruler of the Sikh Empire, which--for a time--was centered here.
Hyderabad(15), with more than one a a half million, is its province's largest city after Karachi. It is almost 200 kilometers up the Indus River, and was a capital of Sind until conquered by the British.
Multan, further south in the Punjab than the province's other large cities, is the same size as Hyderabad. It was already an ancient city when the Chinese Buddhist scholar, Hsuan-tsang, visited it it 641 C.E.
The eighth city is Peshawar(16), on the road toward the Kyber Pass from Rawalpindi. It was a capital(17) of the Graeco-Buddhist Gandhara and of the Yueh-Chih's Kushana Empire, and boasts a second century stupa.
A people, whose written language is undeciphered, lived in the Indus valley and the Punjab from about 3000 B.C.E. to 1500 B.C.E. Perhaps Dravidians were also important in this period, since they were represented then in western Iran, and are a minority today within Pakistan(18), ad a majority in southern India. Or perhaps there were many people related to the Burushaski, a Pakistani language unrelated to any other today or to any known from the past.
In any case, about 1600 B.C.E., Indo-Aryans entered the area. By the time they began writing, the written form, Sanskrit, was no longer spoken but various vernaculars(19) related to it were: the ancestors of today's Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi and others.
Greeks invaded from Afghanistan in the 4th century B.c.E., but left no lasting local linguistic or religious influences. Iranians, notably the Shakas(20) and the Pashto, marched through the same passes, as did the Hephthalites(21), and the Yueh-Chih (Tocharians or Kushanas). Shakas left little mark, but the Pashto stayed on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. The last Iranian arrivals were the Baluchi(22), who took over western Pakistan, where Brahui was spoken.
Turkic Moslem groups also followed this invasion path: the Ghaznevids and Ghorids of Afghanistan, then the Uzbeks under Timur the Lame(23).
Probably up until 1300, certainly up to 1000, Hinduism and Buddhism were predominant. Both co-evolved in the Indian sub-continent from common roots: a core of Indo-Aryan religion, with elements from pre-existing cultures.
Around 1300 the Mongols of Afghanistan, now calling themselves the Moghols(24), profoundly transformed Pakistan and India by introducing Islam. (The later Iranian groups were also Islamic.) When India and Pakistan became separate nations upon the break-up of the British Empire(25), the Hindus in Pakistan fled to India and many Moslems fled, or migrated willingly, to Pakistan. This included the speakers of Urdu, the Moghol ruling language--Mongolian had faded--who had lived around Delhi, India. Another group that fled Pakistan were the Sikhs--a Panjabi religion founded in the 16th century.
northeast
south, from the Northern Areas
east of Punjab
southeast of Punjab
southeast of Sind
south
west of Baluchistan
north of Baluchistan, north and northwest of the Northwest Frontier Province, and northwest, from the Northern Areas.
(1) Much of this last area is claimed by India. Pakistan claims more than it administers. I've included within Pakistan Azad Kashmir, which Pakistan pretends is independent.
(2) Asia's eighth longest.
(3) From the part of India claimed by Pakistan.
(4) Spelled Kabol in Afghanistan (Afghanestan).
(5) Spelled Panjab in Pakistan. Its original form means five waters in Persian. The chief three are the Jhelum, Chenab and the Sutlej.
(6) Also called Godwin-Austen, or Qogir Mountain (Feng).
(7) India claims this area (on both sides of the border recognized by China and Pakistan).
(8) Also spelled Punjabi. Eastern or Standard Panjabi is a distinct set of dialects; the western set regard themselves as speaking Panjabi due to the prestige of Standard Panjabi. Linguistics often call the Western Panjabi dalect group Lahnda (derived from 'west' in Panjabi). Speakers of Siraki (or Seraiki), also called Southern Panjabi, and usually included in Western Panjabi, are agitating for governmental recognition of separate language status.
(9) More than 11 in 20.
(10) Urdu and Standard Hindi are forms of Western Hindi, distinguished by script and religion. This twin language is conventionally distinguished from Eastern Panjabi, but Hindi-Urdu and Western Panjabi are closer than Hindi-Urdu is to some dialects included in Western Hindi, and much closer than some of the other languages that sometimes consider themsleves to be speaking Hindi.
(11) 75%.
(12) 20%.
(13) Known as Lyallput under British rule.
(14) Also spelled Gujranwalla.
(15) Also spelled Haiderabad.
(16) Formerly Purushapura.
(17) The old site is adjacent.
(18) Brahui speakers. They were certainly dominant in western Pakistan until the last millenium.
(19) Called Prakrits.
(20) Also called Sakas or Scythians.
(21) Their language affiliation is unknown.
(22) Or Balochi.
(23) Or Timurleng or Timurlane.
(24) Only the elite were ethnic Mongols. The remainder were miscellaneous Turkic groups.
(25) 1947.