Pakistan (Urdu: پاکِستان [ˈpaːkɪstaːn]), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (اِسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-largest Muslim population just behind Indonesia. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country in the world by area and the second-largest in South Asia, spanning 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles). It has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the north, and also shares a maritime border with Oman. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre.
Pakistan is the site of several ancient cultures, including the 8,500-year-old Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Balochistan, the Indus Valley civilisation of the Bronze Age, the most extensive of the civilisations of the Afro-Eurasia, and the ancient Gandhara civilization. The region that comprises the modern state of Pakistan was the realm of multiple empires and dynasties, including the Achaemenid; briefly that of Alexander the Great; the Seleucid, the Maurya, the Kushan, the Gupta; the Umayyad Caliphate in its southern regions, the Hindu Shahis, the Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, the Durranis, the Omani Empire, the Sikh Empire, British East India Company rule, and most recently, the British Indian Empire from 1858 to 1947. (Full article...)
Balochistan (/bəˈlɒtʃɪstɑːn, bəˌlɒtʃɪˈstɑːn, -stæn/; Balochi: بلۏچستان; Urdu: بلوچستان) is a province of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the north-east and Punjab to the east and Sindh to the south-east. It shares International borders with Iran to the west and Afghanistan to the north; It is also bound by the Arabian Sea to the south. Balochistan is an extensive plateau of rough terrain divided into basins by ranges of sufficient heights and ruggedness. It has the world's largest deep sea port, The Port of Gwadar lying in the Arabian Sea.
Balochistan shares borders with Punjab and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the northeast, Sindh to the east and southeast, the Arabian Sea to the south, Iran (Sistan and Baluchestan) to the west and Afghanistan (Helmand, Nimruz, Kandahar, Paktika and Zabul Provinces) to the north and northwest. (Full article...)
Clock Tower at Government College University, Lahore. It is a co-educational public university located on The Mall in Lahore, Pakistan. The University offers bachelor's, Master's, and Ph.D. degrees in a variety of disciplines. The university currently has more than 6000 students and 323 faculty members. Alumni of Government College are called Ravians after the nearby Ravi River. Photo credit: Waqas Usman |
Clickable map of the four provinces and three federal territories of Pakistan.
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Provinces:
Territories: Pakistani-administered portions of the Kashmir: |
Durrani at an event in 1994 |
Tehmina Durrani (Urdu: تہمینہ درانی; born 18 February 1953) is a Pakistani author, artist, activist on women's and children's rights, and the current First Lady of Pakistan being married to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Her first book, "My Feudal Lord" (1991), shocked conservative Pakistani society because of the sensational exposure of her politically famous but abusive husband, Mustafa Khar.
Her three-year tenure of service alongside Abdul Satar Edhi was transformational and life changing. It also resulted in her authoring his (narrated) autobiography, "A Mirror to the Blind" (1996). The influence of Edhi spurred her into social work and inspired her to establish the 'Tehmina Durrani Foundation', with a mission to further Edhi's way of "humanitarianism", and his vision of Pakistan as a social welfare state. (Full article...)
“ | Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which, we hope other will share with us. | ” |
— Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Founder of Pakistan) |
Religion:
Islam • Christianity • Hinduism
Geography: Asia • Afghanistan • Bangladesh • China • India • Sri Lanka
Sports: Hockey • Cricket
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