Saraiki language in the context of "2023 Pakistani census"

The Panjnad River (Urdu: پنجند, Saraiki: پنجنَںد), also locally known as Panjnand (پنجنںد), is a river at the extreme end of the Bahawalpur district in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The name Panjnad is derived from Persian panj ("five") and Sanskrit nadī́ ("river") which means "five rivers". The Panjnad River is formed by the successive confluence or merger of the five main rivers of Punjab: the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

The Jhelum and the Ravi rivers join the Chenab River; the Beas River joins the Sutlej River; and the Sutlej and the Chenab rivers join to form the Panjnad River. It is 10 miles north of Uch Sharif in the Muzaffar Garh district. The combined stream runs southwest for approximately 44 miles and joins the Indus River at Mithankot. The Indus eventually drains into the Arabian Sea. A barrage on Panjnad has been erected which provides irrigation channels for Punjab and Sindh provinces south of the Sutlej River and east of the Indus River.

Mithankot (Saraiki: مِٹھّݨ کوٹ/کوٹ مِٹھّݨ) also known as Kot Mithan, is a city in Rajanpur District in Punjab, Pakistan. Mithankot is located on the west bank of the Indus River, a short distance downstream from its junction with Panjnand River. Most of its inhabitants are Saraikis and Baloch. The city is noted for being the site of the tomb of Sufi poet, Khawaja Ghulam Fareed. Kot Mithan is also the land where all five main rivers of Pakistan merge.

Isakhel (Pashto: عیسيٰ خيل Saraiki: عِيسىٰ خيل) is a town of Mianwali District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The town is the headquarters of Isakhel Tehsil, an administrative subdivision of the district.

Isakhel is an important town located in the west of Mianwali District. It is named after Isa Khan, a chief of the Pashtun Niazi tribe. Until November 1901, Isakhel was the tehsil headquarters of Bannu District. However, after the North-West Frontier Province was created from Punjab Province, Bannu District was included in the North-West Frontier Province without the Isakhel Tehsil. Isakhel became part of the newly formed Mianwali District of the Punjab. Isakhel was also the residence of the Khan's from the same family called the sons of Khanzaman Khan Niazi, who used to own substantial agriculture land. After land reforms were implemented by Ayub Khan, substantial land was taken by the government from Khan's.

Dera Ismail Khan (/deɪrʌ-ɪsmaɪ.iːl-xɑːn/; Saraiki: ڈیرہ اسماعیل خان, Pashto: ډېره اسماعيل خان), abbreviated as D.I. Khan, is a city and headquarters of Dera Ismail Khan District, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the 10th largest city of Pakistan and third or fourth largest in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population. Dera Ismail Khan is situated on the west bank of the Indus River, at its junction with the Gomal River.

It is 300 kilometres (190 mi) south of the provincial capital Peshawar, and 230 kilometres (140 mi) northwest of Multan, Punjab.

The Saraikis (Saraiki: سرائیکی) are an Indo-Aryan community native to central Pakistan, unified by their use of the Saraiki language and a shared regional identity that transcends tribal and ethnic affiliations.

Mostly inhabiting southern Punjab as well as most parts of Derajat, which is located in the region where southwestern Punjab, southeastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and northeastern Balochistan meet, the Saraiki regional identity arose in the 1960s, separating itself from the broader Punjabi ethnic identity; this was a result of a political movement, arising in 1962, to separate the Derawali, Multani and Riasti dialects from the Punjabi language, and to instead declare them to constitute a separate language for which the term Saraiki was adopted, hitherto only used for a Sindhi dialect spoken in northern Sindh.

The Baloch people in Punjab refers to Baloch residents of Punjab, more specifically assimilated Saraikis and Punjabis, of partial or full Baloch ancestry. The majority of which live in southwest of Punjab, including Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur and Taunsa, which adjoin the Balochistan. Most of them no longer speak Balochi and instead speak Saraiki, Punjabi, or Urdu.

Lahnda (/ˈlɑːndə/; لہندا ਲਰਿੰਦਾ, Punjabi pronunciation: [lɛ˦n.d̪äː]), also known as Lahndi or Western Punjabi, is a group of north-western Indo-Aryan language varieties spoken in northern and central parts of Pakistan. It is defined in the ISO 639 standard as a "macrolanguage" or as a "series of dialects" by other authors. Its validity as a genetic grouping is not certain. The terms "Lahnda" and "Western Punjabi" are exonyms employed by linguists, and are not used by the speakers themselves, who refer to their dialects.

Lahnda includes the following dialects: Saraiki (spoken mostly in southern Pakistani Punjab by about 26 million people), the Jatki dialects (referred to as Punjabi by their ~50 million speakers, spoken in the Bar region of Punjab) i.e. Jhangvi, Shahpuri and Dhanni, the diverse varieties of Hindko (with almost five million speakers in north-western Punjab and neighbouring regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially Hazara), Pahari/Pothwari (3.5 million speakers in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Azad Kashmir and parts of Indian Jammu and Kashmir), Khetrani (20,000 speakers in Balochistan), and Inku (a possibly extinct language of Afghanistan). Ethnologue also subsumes under Lahnda a group of varieties that it labels as "Western Punjabi" (ISO 639-3 code: pnb) – the Majhi dialects transitional between Lahnda and Eastern Punjabi; these are spoken by about 66 million people. Glottolog, however, regards only the Shahpuri, Dhanni and Jatki dialects as "Western Punjabi" within the "Greater Panjabic" family, distinguishing it from the Lahnda varieties ("Hindko-Siraiki" and "Paharic").

Lodhran District (Saraiki: ضِلع لودهراں), is a district in the province of Punjab, Pakistan, with the city of Lodhran as its capital. Located on the northern side of the River Sutlej, it is bounded to the north by the districts of Multan, Khanewal and Vehari, to the south by Bahawalpur, to the east lie the districts of Vehari and Bahawalpur; while district Multan lies on the western side.

Lodhran was split off as a separate district from Multan in 1991. It has the lowest Human Development Index of all districts in Punjab, and is among the thirty poorest districts in Pakistan. It is a well-known cotton-growing area.

Khawaja Ghulam Farid (also romanized as Fareed; c. 1841/1845 – 24 July 1901) was a 19th-century Sufi poet and mystic from Bahawalpur, Punjab, belonging to the Chishti Order. Most of his work is in his mother tongue Multani, which later evolved into the Saraiki language. However, he wrote in many different languages including Punjabi, Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi, Hindi and Persian literature but gained popularity for writing in his mother tongue Multani. His writing style is characterized by the integration of themes such as death, passionate worldly and spiritual love, and the grief associated with love.