Pakistan emerged on the world map on 14th August 1947. A new era ushered in for the eighty million Muslims of the Subcontinent. It has four provinces Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and Balochistan. Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are administered independently. The new State and nation carved out of the South Asian subcontinent, through the areas now comprising Pakistan represented a compact Geo-physical unit.
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| Pakistan |
Geography of Pakistan
The Strategic location of Pakistan is surrounded on its three sides by powerful neighbours Iran and Afghanistan on the east, the Russian states and China in the North, and India in the east. At the same time, the Arabian Sea washes in the South. Its area is estimated as 868,591 square kilometers with a population of 9,00,00,000.
A great mountainous belt towers along the northwest, protecting its vast fertile plains and providing them with much-needed life-giving water in the form of rivers. Which originate in and flow down through these mountains onward into the Arabian Sea in the form of a great riverain system. This apparent unity transcends a wide and rich variety not only in terrain but also in rainfall, climate, and vegetation. The physical differences ranging from the perennially snow-covered towering mountains to vast alluvial and level plains, deserts, and marshy deltas in combination with climatic and other factors, have produced the rich colorful patterns of the socioeconomic and cultural life of the people.
Broadly speaking the whole country falls into two distinct physical zones. The great mountainous belt in the northwest and the vast alluvial fertile plain in the south.
This belt comprises two of Pakistan's four provinces, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, and also includes Northern areas of Pakistan and Kashmir under Indian occupation. Since 1948 Kashmir has been a bone of contention between the two countries. Physically this vast hilly belt which sprawls along the north and western expanse of the country in the form of a gigantic spine may in itself be divided into two main regions.
Northern Ranges
The Northern region comprises three of the highest mountain ranges in the world, namely the Himalayas, the Karakoram, and the Hindu Kush. From the plains of Punjab northwards the mountains go on increasing in height and altitude, starting from the low-ranging mud-hills and Siwaliks to the Pir Panjal and finally to the snow-covered Karakoram and the Hindukush. Some of the highest mountain peaks in the world including the famous Mount K-2 approximately 8,611 meters. Mount Everest in height and others like Kenchinchinga and the Tirich Mir 7,600 meters are located in these ranges. Their challenge to human endurance inspires mountaineers all over the world to come and try their grit and skill against them.
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| K2 Karakoram Ranges |
The area also includes beautiful valleys and spots of scenic beauty like the regions of Chitral, Gilgit, Hunza, Swat, the Kaghan Valley, the Murree hills, Ayubia, Nathiagali, etc. Whose blissful and salubrious climate attracts tourists from all over the world. Most of these fertile valleys and regions are formed by the rivers which generally open or lead towards the plains. This pattern has greatly facilitated people's movement towards the plains.
Southern Mountains
South of the northern ranges and west of the plains lie the Suliman range, including the Safed Koh ( white mountains) and the Kirtan, mostly of limestone which stretches out to the coast. The region in the lower reaches itself into Balochistan, comprising the largest province of Pakistan in the area. It is dotted with lower-altitude hills. Their height varies from 1500 to 3600 meters, the highest point being the mount Takhti-Sulaiman in the Sulaiman range. This region is arid than its northern counterpart. There are valleys which in Balochistan and Kohistan of Sindh often run from north to south. The movement of people thus remained confined along the Makran coast skirting these regions in the south and the northern hilly regions, a fact which deterred large-scale migration towards the plains as in the case of the mountain dwellers of the north.
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| Koh-e-Sulaiman Ranges |
The hills and mountains apparently so inhospitable however provided man, since remote antiquity of the pre-historic times, pockets of protected small river valleys where he could survive against the natural hazard and mammoth enemies stalking the level plains. Traces of such cloistered small settlements cover a vast span of human evolution from the Early Stone Age (the first inter-glacial period approximately 400,000 to 200,000 B.C.). The Copper and Bronze ages of 3000 B.C. have been discovered from as far north as Swat and Potwar to Rohri-Sukkur, Quetta, and Lasbella.
