Pakistanپاکستان

The Indus Valley civilisation, flourishing from about 2600 to 1900 BC, built planned brick cities at Mohenjo-daro in Sindh and Harappa in Punjab, with drains, granaries, standardised weights and a script still undeciphered. Later the north-west became Gandhara, a crossroads where Persian, Greek and Indian worlds met. Alexander the Great crossed the Indus in 326 BC, and under the Kushans in the first centuries AD Gandhara produced the first human images of the Buddha, carved in grey schist in a style shaped by Greek art; Taxila near Islamabad preserves its monasteries.

Arab armies reached Sindh in 711–712, and from the eleventh century Turkic rulers based in Afghanistan pushed through the Punjab. Lahore became a capital of the Ghaznavids and later a great Mughal city: Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb built its fort, the Shalimar Gardens and the Badshahi Mosque. After Mughal decline, the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh governed the Punjab from Lahore until the British annexed it in 1849.

Under British rule the Punjab's canal colonies turned desert into farmland, and Karachi grew into a major port. Muslim political identity sharpened in the twentieth century; the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, called for a separate state in its 1940 Lahore Resolution. Pakistan was created on 14 August 1947 as two wings, East and West, amid the violence of Partition, in which up to a million died and millions crossed the new borders. The first war with India over Kashmir followed within months.

Pakistan's history since has alternated between elected governments and military rule, under Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf. East Pakistan broke away in 1971 to become Bangladesh. Zia's rule in the 1980s tied the state to Islamist politics and to the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, whose consequences, including militancy in the north-west, shaped the decades after 2001. Nuclear tests in 1998 made Pakistan a nuclear power; the May 2025 clashes with India were the most serious since 1971.

With about 240 million people, Pakistan is the world's fifth most populous country and one of its youngest, with a median age around twenty. Punjabis, living mainly in the fertile Punjab plain, are the largest group, followed by Pashtuns in the north-west, Sindhis in the south, Saraiki speakers in the southern Punjab, the Muhajirs (families who migrated from India in 1947, mostly in Karachi) and the Baloch of the south-west.

Urdu, a language closely related to Hindi but written in a Perso-Arabic script and rich in Persian and Arabic words, is the national language and the mother tongue of fewer than one in ten people. English remains the language of the elite, the courts and much of higher education. Most Pakistanis speak a regional language at home and switch between two or three languages daily.

The north is a mosaic of its own. In Gilgit-Baltistan, Shina, Burushaski (a language unrelated to any other), Wakhi and Balti are spoken; many people in Hunza are Ismaili Muslims, followers of the Aga Khan, whose development network built schools and health centres that give the valley some of the highest literacy in the country. In Chitral's Kalash valleys a small community keeps a distinct polytheistic faith.

Family and clan (biradari) structure social life and politics. Hospitality is a point of honour, especially among Pashtuns, whose code, Pashtunwali, obliges a host to protect a guest. Cricket is the national passion, and the 1992 World Cup win made its captain, Imran Khan, a hero long before his political career. A large diaspora in the Gulf, the UK and North America sends remittances that keep many families afloat.

About 96 per cent of Pakistanis are Muslim, most of them Sunni, with a Shia minority estimated at 15–20 per cent and smaller Ismaili and Ahmadi communities; Ahmadis are declared non-Muslim by the constitution and face heavy restrictions. Hindus, concentrated in Sindh, and Christians, mainly in Punjab, make up most of the rest, and Sikh pilgrims from abroad visit shrines such as Nankana Sahib and the Kartarpur gurdwara.

For centuries Islam in the Indus region spread through Sufi saints, and their shrines remain at the heart of popular faith. The tomb of Data Ganj Bakhsh in Lahore, the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar at Sehwan in Sindh, with its ecstatic dhamaal drumming, and the shrines of Multan draw huge crowds. Devotees tie threads, offer rose petals, share food and listen to music in search of blessing (baraka).

Qawwali, devotional music sung by a lead vocalist, chorus and harmonium, is the best-known expression of this tradition; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan took it to world stages in the 1980s and 90s, and Abida Parveen and the Sabri brothers remain famous. Thursday evenings at many shrines bring live qawwali, a moving experience for visitors who dress modestly and sit respectfully.

Faith is also contested. Sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia militants, attacks on Sufi shrines by extremists, blasphemy laws that carry the death penalty and have fuelled mob violence, and pressure on minorities are part of Pakistan's recent history. They are one reason governments issue strict travel advice, and why visitors should avoid religious debate and large processions, especially during Muharram.

Northern Pakistan holds the meeting point of three great ranges: the Himalaya, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush. The Karakoram contains K2, at 8,611 m the world's second-highest mountain, and four other 8,000 m peaks, as well as some of the longest glaciers outside the polar regions: Baltoro, Biafo and Hispar. Nanga Parbat, the western anchor of the Himalaya, rises over 7 km above the Indus gorge at its foot.

The Karakoram Highway, completed in 1978 with Chinese help after two decades of work that cost hundreds of lives, follows the Indus and Hunza rivers from the plains to the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 m. It opened the former princely states of Hunza and Nagar to the outside world. In 2010 a landslide dammed the Hunza river and created Attabad Lake, now a turquoise tourist site crossed by tunnels.

Tourism in the north collapsed during the years of militancy after 2001 and revived after 2015, driven mostly by Pakistani domestic tourists and, after visa reforms in 2019, by foreign travellers. Hunza's forts, restored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the cold desert of Skardu, the Deosai plateau and Fairy Meadows below Nanga Parbat are the best-known destinations; K2 base camp and the Baltoro trek attract serious trekkers.

The region faces its own risks: glacial lake outburst floods, landslides on the highway, over-building of hotels and pressure on water and forests. It also sits on political fault lines: Gilgit-Baltistan's constitutional status is tied to the Kashmir dispute, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor runs through it, and some districts carry stricter government advice than others. Check the latest before planning any route.