Karachi in the context of "Partition of India"

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 Achaemenid, the Maurya, the Kushan, the Gupta; the Umayyad Caliphate in its southern regions, the Hindu Shahis, the Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate, the Samma, the Shah Miris, the Mughals, and finally, the British Raj from 1858 to 1947.

The Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area, commonly referred to as Islamabad–Rawalpindi or the Twin Cities, is the fourth-largest metropolitan area of Pakistan, after Karachi, Lahore, and Faisalabad. With a population of over 5.7 million, it is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the Punjab region, the largest in northern Punjab, and fourth in the entire country. It consists of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi; administratively within the Islamabad Capital Territory and the province of Punjab.

The area includes the Pothohar Plateau in northern Punjab, with and the colonial-era city of Rawalpindi, as well as the modern planned city of Islamabad. The region received a major boom with the construction of Islamabad as the capital city of Pakistan in the 1960s.

The Indus (/ˈɪndəs/ IN-dəs) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The 3,180 km (1,980 mi) river rises in western China, flows northwest through the disputed Kashmir region, first through the Indian-administered Ladakh, and then the Pakistani-administered Gilgit-Baltistan, bends sharply to the left after the Nanga Parbat massif, and flows south-by-southwest through Pakistan, before bifurcating and emptying into the Arabian Sea, its main stem located near the port city of Karachi.

The Indus River has a total drainage area of circa 1,120,000 km (430,000 sq mi). Its estimated annual flow is around 175 km/a (5,500 m/s), making it one of the 50 largest rivers in the world in terms of average annual flow. Its left-bank tributary in Ladakh is the Zanskar River, and its left-bank tributary in the plains is the Panjnad River which is formed by the successive confluences of the five Punjab rivers, namely the Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers. Its principal right-bank tributaries are the Shyok, Gilgit, Kabul, Kurram, and Gomal rivers. Beginning in a mountain spring and fed with glaciers and rivers in the Himalayan, Karakoram, and Hindu Kush ranges, the river supports the ecosystems of temperate forests, plains, and arid countryside.

Islamabad (/ɪzˈlɑːməbæd/ ; Urdu: اسلام‌آباد, romanised: Islāmābād, lit. 'City of Islam', [ɪsˈlɑːmɑːbɑːd] ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Built as a planned city in the 1960s and established in 1967, it replaced Karachi as Pakistan's national capital. Islamabad is located north of the city of Rawalpindi, with which it forms a metropolitan area of over 5.7 million inhabitants.

The Greek architect Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis developed Islamabad's master plan, in which he divided it into eight zones; the city comprises administrative, diplomatic enclave, residential areas, educational and industrial sectors, commercial areas, as well as rural and green areas administered by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation with support from the Capital Development Authority. Islamabad is known for its parks and forests, including the Margalla Hills National Park and the Shakarparian. It is home to several landmarks, including the country's flagship Faisal Mosque. Other prominent landmarks include the Pakistan Monument and Democracy Square.

Lahore is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Punjab. It is the second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and 27th largest in the world, with a population of over 14 million. Lahore is one of Pakistan's major industrial, educational and economic hubs. It has been the historic capital and cultural centre of the wider Punjab region, and is one of Pakistan's most socially liberal, progressive, and cosmopolitan cities.

Lahore's origin dates back to antiquity. The city has been inhabited for around two millennia, although it rose to prominence in the late 10th century with the establishment of the Walled City, its fortified interior. Lahore served as the capital of several empires during the mediaeval era, including the Hindu Shahis, Ghaznavid Empire and Delhi Sultanate. It reached the height of its splendour under the Mughal Empire between the late 16th and early 18th centuries, being its capital city for many years. During this period, it was one of the largest cities in the world. The city was captured by the forces of the Afsharid ruler Nader Shah in 1739. Although the Mughal authority was re-established, it fell into a period of decay while being contested among the Afghans and the Sikhs between 1748 and 1798, eventually becoming capital of the Sikh Empire in the early 19th century. Lahore was annexed to the British Raj in 1849 and became the capital of British Punjab. Lahore was central to the independence movements of British India, with the city being the site of both the Declaration of Indian Independence and the resolution calling for the establishment of Pakistan. It experienced some of the worst rioting during the partition of British India preceding Pakistan's establishment. Following the success of the Pakistan Movement and the subsequent partition in 1947, Lahore was declared the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province.

Sindh (/ˈsɪnd/ SIND; Sindhi: سِنْڌ‎; Urdu: سِنْدھ, pronounced [sɪndʱə]; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind or Scinde) is a province of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province by population after Punjab. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Balochistan to the west and north-west and Punjab to the north. It shares an International border with the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to the east; it is also bounded by the Arabian Sea to the south. Sindh's landscape consists mostly of alluvial plains flanking the Indus River, the Thar Desert in the eastern portion of the province along the international border with India, and the Kirthar Mountains in the western portion of the province.

The economy of Sindh is the second largest in Pakistan after the province of Punjab; its provincial capital Karachi is the most populous city in the country as well as its main financial hub. Sindh is home to a large portion of Pakistan's industrial sector and contains two of the country's busiest commercial seaports: Port Qasim and the Port of Karachi. The remainder of Sindh consists of an agriculture-based economy and produces fruits, consumer items and vegetables for other parts of the country.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) around Karachi was the original capital territory of Pakistan. The FCT was created in 1948 from the city of Karachi and surrounding areas as the location for Pakistan's capital following its creation. This move, however, was controversial as the territory was created despite resistance from the local groups in Sindh. The FCT was bordered by the province of Sindh to the northeast and the princely state of Las Bela to the northwest with the Arabian Sea to the south.