Pakistan cover photo by ASP
Pakistan cover photo by ASP
The Pakistan Portal

Introduction

Flag of Pakistan
Flag of Pakistan
State emblem of Pakistan
State emblem of Pakistan
Location on the world map
"The National Anthem"
Qaumī Tarānah
قَومی ترانہ

Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area. Bounded by the Arabian Sea on the south, the Gulf of Oman on the southwest, and the Sir Creek on the southeast, it shares land borders with India to the east; Afghanistan to the west; Iran to the southwest; and China to the northeast. It shares a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor.

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, and the ancient Gandhara civilisation. The regions that compose the modern state of Pakistan were the realm of multiple empires and dynasties, including the Gandhāra, the Achaemenid, the Maurya, the Kushan, the Parthian, the Paratarajas, the Gupta; the Umayyad Caliphate in its southern regions, the Hindu Shahis, the Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate, the Samma, the Shah Miris, the Mughals, the Durranis, the Sikhs and most recently, the British Raj from 1858 to 1947. (Full article...)

Eid Prayers at the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore

Islam is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan has over 231.6 Million adherents of Islam (including the administrative territory of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan ). As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam. Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions.

About 97% of Pakistanis are Muslims. The majority are Sunni (85-90%) while Shias make up between 10% and 15%. The Hanbali school has gained popularity recently due to Wahabbi influence from the Middle East. Smaller minority Muslim populations in Pakistan include Quranists, nondenominational Muslims. There are also two Mahdi'ist based creeds practised in Pakistan, namely Mahdavia and Ahmadiyya, the latter of whom are considered by the constitution of Pakistan to be non-Muslims; they jointly constitute around 1% of the Muslim population. Pakistan has the world's largest Muslim majority city (Karachi). (Full article...)

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An illuminated view of famous Empress Market in Karachi. Empress Market is located in Saddar Town of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It was built in 1889 and was named in honour of Queen Victoria, Empress of British Empire in South Asia. Empress Market is the central shopping centre of Karachi.

Photo credit: Cyclops1789

General images

The following are images from various Pakistan-related articles on Wikipedia.

This week in history

Provinces and Territories

Clickable map of the four provinces and three federal territories of Pakistan.
A clickable map of Pakistan exhibiting its administrative units.Balochistan (Pakistan)Punjab (Pakistan)SindhIslamabad Capital TerritoryKhyber PakhtunkhwaKhyber PakhtunkhwaAzad KashmirGilgit-Baltistan
A clickable map of Pakistan exhibiting its administrative units.

Provinces:

  1. Balochistan
  2. Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK)
  3. Punjab
  4. Sindh

Territories:

  1. Islamabad Capital Territory

Pakistani-administered portions of the Kashmir:

  1. Azad Kashmir
  2. Gilgit-Baltistan

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    • Collect links for all the maps on each and every article about Pakistan and list them on the Cartography page

  • Selected biography - show another

    Riaz in 2016

    Malik Riaz Hussain (Urdu, Punjabi: ملک ریاض حسین; born February 8, 1954 in Sialkot) is a Pakistani real estate tycoon who is the founder of Bahria Town, the largest privately held real estate development company in Pakistan. His real estate projects are associated with the concept of gated communities, where the residents are provided with a wide variety of facilities. (Full article...)

    Did you know?

    • ... that Burushaski, a predominantly in northern Gilgit-Baltistan spoken rather than written language, has not more than 120,000 native speakers? (9 July 2023)
    • ... that Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau, the famous German–Pakistani Catholic nun who devoted more than 55 years of her life to fighting leprosy was the first Christian and first non-Muslim to have a state funeral in Pakistan? (2 September 2021)
    • ... that Lahore Knowledge Park is an actualization of Triple Helix configuration; a framework to create synergies between government, academia and industry to operate into an interactive rather than linear model for the establishment of social formats and entities to promote commercial innovation and R&D. [2] (27 January 2017)
    • ... that Sialkot is the world's largest producer of hand-sewed footballs, with local factories manufacturing 40~60 million footballs a year, amounting to roughly 60% of world production. (4 December 2017)
    • ... that Hafiz Muhammad Fazal Azim Taha, the famous living Pakistani poet said about Iqbal's work that "He not only dreamed for Pakistan but also got the nation up for their rights". This famous saying is regarded as Iqbal's definition. (14 July 2014)
    • ... that The Edhi Foundation, founded by Edhi, runs the world's largest volunteer ambulance service operating 1,800 of them with upto 6,000 a day in Karachi alone. (4 December 2017)


    Pakistan news

    Today is October 31, 2024
    For up to date, in depth news coverage on Pakistan, see Wikinews:Portal:Pakistan. Wikinews is a sister project of Wikipedia, which deals with journalism of current events. They are both operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.
    12 October 2024 – Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
    At least eleven people are killed and eight others are injured in tribal clashes in Kurram District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (AP)
    10 October 2024 – Insurgency in Balochistan
    At least twenty-one miners are killed and six others are injured in an attack by unknown armed militants on a private coal mine in Duki District, Balochistan, Pakistan. (Reuters)
    9 October 2024 – Insurgency in Balochistan
    One Frontier Corps official and two terrorists are killed and thirteen others are injured by a suicide bombing and gun attack on a Frontier Corps post in Zhob, Balochistan, Pakistan. (Daily Ausaf)
    7 October 2024 – Human rights in Pakistan
    The Pakistani government bans the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, a social movement for Pashtun human rights, calling the movement a "proscribed organization". (Al Jazeera)
    6 October 2024 – Insurgency in Sindh
    At least two people, both Chinese nationals, are killed and ten others are injured when an oil tanker truck exploded near Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan. The separatist group Balochistan Liberation Army claims responsibility for the explosion, stating they targeted a convoy of Chinese workers of the Port Qasim Electric Power Company. (Crisis24) (Reuters)
    3 October 2024 –
    Seven people are killed and 19 others are injured when a bus falls into a ravine in Balochistan, Pakistan. (Dawn)

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    You are cordially invited to join and contribute to WikiProject Pakistan, a WikiProject dedicated to the development and improvement of articles relating to Pakistan.

    Associated Wikimedia

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    Wikipedias in Pakistani languages

    كشميري (Kashmiri) • پښتو (Pashto) • فارسی (Persian) • پنجابی (Punjabi) • سنڌي (Sindhi) • اردو (Urdu)

    Sources

    1. ^ Mahendra, Anjali. "The Metro Bus System comes to Lahore, Pakistan". TheCityFix. World Resources Institute. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
    2. ^ "Lahore Knowledge Park Company".
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