Pakistan
Name
| Official name | Islamic Republic of Pakistan — Islami Jumhuriyah Pakistan (اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکستان) |
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| Former names | The Dominion of Pakistan (1947–56); West Pakistan and East Pakistan of the two wings (1947–71), the "One Unit" of 1955–70; the provinces of British India — the Punjab, Sind, the North-West Frontier Province, British Baluchistan and the princely states of Bahawalpur, Khairpur, Kalat, Swat, Hunza and the rest; the Sikh Empire of Lahore; the Mughal subahs; Gandhara and the Indus |
| Demonym | Pakistani |
| Meaning of the name | "The land of the pure" — pak, pure, and -stan, land, in Urdu and Persian; the acronym of Choudhry Rahmat Ali's pamphlet of 28 January 1933, "Now or Never," for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan, the Muslim homelands of the northwest; the "Pakistan" of the Lahore Resolution of 23 March 1940 |
| Motto | "Iman, Ittihad, Nazm" — faith, unity, discipline; Jinnah's words on the arms |
Quick facts
| Capital | Islamabad — the planned city of Doxiadis, built from 1961 and the capital since 1967 in place of Karachi; about 1.2 million in the city, 2.5 million with Rawalpindi; the Islamabad Capital Territory |
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| Largest cities | Karachi, about 20 million, the port and the largest city, the capital until 1959; Lahore, about 13 million, the Mughal and Punjabi capital; Faisalabad of the textiles; Rawalpindi of the army's headquarters; Gujranwala; Peshawar, the Pashtun city of the Khyber; Multan of the saints; Hyderabad of Sindh; Islamabad; Quetta of Balochistan; Bahawalpur; Sargodha; Sialkot of the footballs; Sukkur; Larkana of the Bhuttos; Sheikhupura; Mardan; Gujrat; Muzaffarabad of Azad Kashmir; Gilgit of the north |
| Official languages | Urdu — the national language by the Constitution, the mother tongue of 9% and the second language of most, the Persianized Hindustani of the Muslim courts in the Arabic script, the language of the anthem and the state; English — the official language of the government, the courts, the universities and the elite, kept beyond the constitution's deadline of 1988; Punjabi the mother tongue of 37%, Pashto of 18%, Sindhi of 15%, Saraiki of 12%, Balochi of 3.4%, Hindko, Brahui, Kashmiri, Shina, Balti, the Burushaski isolate of Hunza and the 70 languages of the census (2023) |
| Currency | Pakistani rupee — PKR, Rs; 100 paisa; since 1948; about 280 to the U.S. dollar |
| Time zone | Pakistan Standard Time, UTC+5; no summer time since 2009 |
| Calling code | +92 |
| Internet domain | .pk and .پاکستان |
| ISO 3166 codes | PK · PAK · 586 |
| Vehicle registration code | PK |
| Driving side | Left |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug types C and D; the load-shedding of the summers |
| Independence | 14 August 1947, from the United Kingdom, by the Indian Independence Act — Jinnah the governor-general and Liaquat Ali Khan the prime minister, the partition of the Punjab and Bengal, a million dead and 15 million moved; the republic of 23 March 1956; the war of 1971 that took the eastern wing |
| National days | 14 August, Independence Day, the day before India's by the Radcliffe line's timing; 23 March, Pakistan Day, for the Lahore Resolution of 1940 and the republic of 1956, the parade; 6 September, Defence Day, for the war of 1965; 25 December, Quaid-e-Azam Day, Jinnah's birthday of 1876; 9 November, Iqbal Day; 5 February, Kashmir Solidarity Day; 1 May; the Eids, Ashura, the Mawlid, the Islamic new year; the 10 May of the "Marka-e-Haq" of 2025 the newest |
| Constitution | 14 August 1973 — the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the third, adopted by the National Assembly under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on 10 April 1973 by the consensus of the parties: a federal parliamentary republic of the four provinces, the president the head of state and the prime minister the head of government, Islam the state religion and the Objectives Resolution of 1949 its preamble, the Council of Islamic Ideology; suspended by Zia in 1977 and by Musharraf in 1999 and restored; amended 27 times — the Second of 1974 that declared the Ahmadis non-Muslims, the Eighth of Zia's presidential powers, the Eighteenth of 2010 that gave the provinces their autonomy and the prime minister his powers back, the Twenty-first of the military courts of 2015, the Twenty-sixth of 21 October 2024 that gave the parliament the choice of the chief justice, and the Twenty-seventh of 13 November 2025, passed in seven days over the PTI's boycott, that created the Chief of Defence Forces, put the nuclear command under him, gave the field marshal lifetime immunity and made a Federal Constitutional Court above the Supreme Court for the constitutional cases, "solidarity and national unity," the prime minister said, "the end of the civilian state," the critics |
| Population | 241,499,431 at the digital census of 2023, the seventh; about 255 million (2026 est.) — the fifth-most populous, growing at 2.5% |
| Area | 796,095 km² (307,374 sq mi) by the Factbook without the administered Kashmir — land 770,875 km², water 25,220 km²; about 881,913 km² with Azad Kashmir of 13,297 km² and Gilgit-Baltistan of 72,496 km²; the thirty-third-largest |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | A dark green field with a white vertical band at the hoist, a quarter of the width, and a white crescent and five-pointed star on the green — the green for the Muslim majority and the white for the minorities of the new state, the crescent for progress and the star for light and knowledge, the design of Syed Amir-uddin Kedwaii on the Muslim League's flag of 1906, adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1947, three days before independence, "Parcham-e-Sitāra-o-Hilāl," the flag of the star and crescent of the anthem's last line.Flag of Pakistan |
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| State emblem | A crescent and star crest above a quartered shield of the four crops of 1947, cotton, wheat, tea and jute, in a wreath of jasmine of the Mughal manner, on the scroll of Jinnah's motto "Iman, Ittihad, Nazm," faith, unity, discipline, in Urdu; adopted 1954; the tea and the jute the East Pakistan the country lost |
| National anthem | "Qaumi Tarana" — "Pak Sarzamin Shad Bad," "blessed be the sacred land" — the music of Ahmed Ghulamali Chagla of 1949 played first for the Shah of Iran's visit of 1950 and the words of the poet Hafeez Jalandhari of 1952 in a Persianized Urdu that Persians can read, adopted 13 August 1954; three stanzas of a minute and twenty seconds, "the flag of the crescent and star leads the way to progress and perfection" |
| National motto | "Iman, Ittihad, Nazm" |
| National colors | Green and white |
| National animal | The markhor — the screw-horned wild goat of the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram, the "snake-eater" of the legend, the trophy of the Chitral Gol and Torghar hunts whose fees saved it; the snow leopard of the north; the Indus river dolphin, the blind dolphin of the Sindh, about 2,000; the chukar partridge the national bird, the shaheen falcon the symbol of Iqbal's poetry; the mango the national fruit and the guava the winter one; the deodar cedar the tree; the jasmine the flower; sugarcane juice the drink by the vote of 2019; widely cited |
| National dress | The shalwar kameez of both sexes, the long shirt over the loose trousers, the dupatta of the women, the Jinnah cap of the founder and the Sindhi cap and ajrak of the south, the pakol of the Pashtun north, the shervani of the state occasions; declared the national dress in 1982 |
| National dish | Nihari, the slow-cooked beef shank stew of the Delhi Muslims' breakfast that Karachi made its own, the national dish by the vote of 2019; the biryani of Karachi and the pulao of the north, the haleem, the chapli kebab of Peshawar, the karahi of Lahore's Food Street, the sajji of Balochistan, the Sindhi biryani and the Hyderabadi; the lassi of the Punjab, the doodh patti tea; the mangoes of Multan; the Ramadan pakoras; widely cited |
| National sport | Field hockey — the national sport by the declaration, the three Olympic golds of 1960, 1968 and 1984 and the four World Cups of 1971, 1978, 1982 and 1994, the most of any country, the decline since; cricket the passion, the World Cup of 1992 under Imran Khan, the T20 title of 2009, the Champions Trophy of 2017 and the tournament hosted in 2025, the first ICC event at home since 1996, the Pakistan Super League of 2016; squash, Jahangir Khan's 555 matches unbeaten of 1981–86, the longest streak of any sport, and Jansher Khan's eight world titles; the javelin gold of Arshad Nadeem at Paris on 8 August 2024 with the Olympic record of 92.97 m, the country's first individual gold; the polo of Shandur; the kabaddi and the pehlwani wrestling; widely cited |
| Symbol status | The flag by the resolution of 1947; the emblem by the decision of 1954; the anthem by the decision of 1954; the animal, bird, fruit, flower, tree, drink, dress and dish by the government's declarations; the sports by the declaration and the usage |
Geography
| Location | South Asia on the Arabian Sea — India to the east across the Punjab plains and the Thar, Afghanistan to the northwest along the Durand Line, Iran to the west across Balochistan, China to the northeast across the Karakoram; the Indus from the mountains to the delta; the Kashmir of the Line of Control between the two nuclear armies since 1949 and the ceasefire of 2003 and 2021, the four-day war of May 2025 |
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| Land borders | 7,257 km (4,509 mi) with four neighbors — India 3,190, the Radcliffe line of the Punjab and the Sindh and the Line of Control of Kashmir of 740 km, the Wagah gate of the flag ceremony closed to the trade since 2019 and shut again in the war of 2025; Afghanistan 2,670, the Durand Line of 1893 that Kabul has never accepted, the Torkham and Chaman crossings closed in the wars of 2025 and 2026, the fence of 2017–23; Iran 909, the Taftan crossing and the Baloch of both sides; China 438 across the Karakoram, the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 m; the Siachen glacier of the undemarcated north where the two armies have sat since 1984 at 6,000 m, the highest battlefield on earth |
| Coastline | 1,046 km (650 mi) — the Sindh coast of Karachi and the Indus delta of the mangroves, the largest arid mangrove forest in the world, the Makran coast of Balochistan of the fishing villages and the Chinese port of Gwadar, the Hingol of the mud volcanoes and the Princess of Hope, the Astola island; the Makran Coastal Highway of 2004; the Arabian Sea of the BLA's ambush of April 2026 on the coast guard |
| Highest point | K2 — Chhogori — 8,611 m (28,251 ft), on the Chinese border in the Karakoram, the second-highest on earth; Nanga Parbat 8,126 m the highest of the Himalaya in Pakistan; Tirich Mir 7,708 m of the Hindu Kush |
| Lowest point | The Arabian Sea, 0 m |
| Mean elevation | 900 m (2,953 ft) |
| Rivers | The Indus — Sindhu, the river that named India — 3,180 km from Tibet through Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, the gorge of the Nanga Parbat, the Tarbela dam, the plains of the Punjab and Sindh to the delta below Karachi, the country's life and the largest contiguous irrigation system in the world of 60,000 km of canals; the five rivers of the Punjab, "the land of five waters" — the Jhelum of the Mangla dam, the Chenab, the Ravi of Lahore, the Beas and the Sutlej — the three eastern given to India by the Indus Waters Treaty of 19 September 1960 and the three western to Pakistan, the treaty held "in abeyance" by India since 23 April 2025; the Kabul river from Afghanistan to the Indus at Attock, the Swat, the Kunhar; the Hub of Karachi; the Dasht of Makran; the Indus dolphin's stretch |
| Lakes | Manchar, about 250 km² in Sindh, the largest, fed by the Indus and poisoned by the drains; Saiful Muluk of the Kaghan at 3,224 m of the fairy tale; Attabad, made by the landslide of 4 January 2010 that dammed the Hunza and drowned the Karakoram Highway; the Sheosar of the Deosai plateau; the Keenjhar of Karachi's water, the Haleji of the birds; the reservoirs of Tarbela of 1976, the largest earth-filled dam of the world, and Mangla of 1967; the Hanna of Quetta; the Rawal of Islamabad; the glacial lakes of the north that burst in the warming |
| Terrain | The Indus plain of the Punjab and Sindh, the flat quarter of the country of the canals, the wheat, the cotton and the people; the Thar desert of the southeast, the Cholistan and the Thal; the Balochistan plateau of the west, half the land and a twentieth of the people, the Sulaiman and Kirthar ranges, the Chagai of the tests; the northern highlands where the three ranges meet — the Karakoram of K2 and the Baltoro, Biafo and Siachen glaciers, the longest outside the poles, the Himalaya of Nanga Parbat, the Hindu Kush of Chitral and the Khyber Pass, the valleys of Hunza, Swat, Kaghan and Chitral, the Deosai plateau at 4,000 m; the Potohar plateau of Islamabad and the Salt Range of Khewra |
| Climate | Arid and semi-arid over most — the summers of 45°C on the plains and 50 in Sindh, Jacobabad's 53.7°C of 2017 among the hottest ever measured, the winters mild in the south and freezing in the north; the monsoon of July to September that brings the Punjab its 500 mm and Karachi its 200, the failing rains of Balochistan of 100; the mountains of the snows and the glaciers; the smog of Lahore of every winter, the worst air of any city in the world by the rankings of 2024 and 2025; the "climate vulnerability" of the tenth in the indexes |
| Natural hazards | Floods — the floods of June to October 2022 of the "monsoon on steroids" that put a third of the country under water, killed 1,739 and cost US$30 billion, the floods of 2010 with 2,000 dead and 20 million affected, the floods of August and September 2025 of the Punjab and the Buner cloudburst with about 1,000 dead; earthquakes — the Kashmir earthquake of 8 October 2005, magnitude 7.6, 87,000 dead and Muzaffarabad and Balakot flattened, the Quetta earthquake of 1935 with 30,000, the Awaran of 2013; the glacial lake outbursts of the north; the heat waves, Karachi's of 2015 with 1,200 dead; the droughts of Thar; the landslides of the Karakoram Highway; the fires of the cities, the Gul Plaza mall of Karachi of 17 January 2026 with 79 dead; the building collapses; the terror |
| Natural resources | Natural gas of Sui in Balochistan since 1952, the field that heated the country and runs down, the Kirthar and the imports of LNG; coal of the Thar, the seventh-largest reserves in the world, mined since 2019 for the power plants; copper and gold of Reko Diq in Chagai, one of the largest undeveloped deposits on earth, the Barrick project of US$7 billion for 2028, and the Saindak of the Chinese; the salt of Khewra, the second-largest mine in the world since Alexander's horses; limestone, chromite, marble, gypsum, the iron ore of Kalabagh; the water of the Indus and the hydropower of the north; the arable land of the plains; the cotton |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 35%, the irrigated plain of 20 million hectares the largest of any country; forest about 2%, among the lowest in the world, the "Billion Tree" plantings of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; the desert and the mountain the rest |
| National parks | About 30 national parks — Kirthar of 1974 of the Sindh hills, the first; Khunjerab of 1975 on the Chinese border, the snow leopards and the Marco Polo sheep at 4,000 m; Central Karakoram of 1993, 10,000 km², the largest, of K2 and the glaciers; Deosai of the Himalayan brown bears; Hingol of 6,100 km² on the Makran coast; Lal Suhanra of the Cholistan, the biosphere reserve; Chitral Gol of the markhor; Margalla Hills over the capital; Ayubia and the Murree hills; the Indus dolphin reserve of Sukkur; the Kalash valleys; the "Green Pakistan" of the promises |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 6 — the Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro (1980), the city of the Indus civilization of 2500 BC on the Sindh plain, its Great Bath and its grid; Taxila (1980), the Gandhara city of the Achaemenids, Alexander and the Buddhist university; the Buddhist Ruins of Takht-i-Bahi and the Neighbouring City Remains at Sahr-i-Bahlol (1980), the monastery of the first century on its hill above Mardan; the Historical Monuments at Makli, Thatta (1981), the necropolis of a million graves of the Sindh sultans; the Fort and Shalamar Gardens in Lahore (1981), Akbar's fort and Shah Jahan's gardens of 1641; Rohtas Fort (1997), Sher Shah Suri's of 1541 on the Grand Trunk Road; the Suri Jagek of the Kalash (2018) on the intangible list with the falconry and the Nowruz shared; Harappa, the Badshahi Mosque, the Karakoram and Mehrgarh on the tentative |
| Administrative divisions | 4 provinces — Punjab of 128 million, more than half the country, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, with elected assemblies, chief ministers and governors named by the president, the tribal districts of the old FATA merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on 31 May 2018; the Islamabad Capital Territory; the two territories of the administered Kashmir — Azad Jammu and Kashmir of Muzaffarabad with its own president and prime minister and Gilgit-Baltistan with its assembly, neither a province by the constitution for the Kashmir claim; about 160 districts; the local governments of the provincial laws, elected and dissolved by turns |
People
| Population | 241,499,431 (census of 2023); about 255 million (2026 est.) |
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| Population density | About 320 per km² (830 per sq mi) — the Punjab at 640, Balochistan at 40 |
| Population growth | 2.55% a year by the census of 2017–23, the highest of South Asia, four million more people every year, the 400 million of 2050 by the projections |
| Median age | About 20 years — two-thirds under 30 |
| Life expectancy | About 67 years |
| Fertility rate | About 3.6 births per woman — the highest of South Asia, from 6.6 in 1980 |
| Urban population | About 40% by the census, more by the truth of the sprawl |
| Adult literacy | About 61% — the men at 72%, the women at 50%; 26 million children out of school, the second-largest number in the world after Nigeria |
| Ethnic groups | Punjabi 44.7%, the people of the plain, the army and the state; Pashtun 15.4%, the Pathans of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the tribal districts, Quetta and the Karachi of 5 million Pashtuns, the largest Pashtun population of any country; Sindhi 14.1%, the people of the lower Indus, the Bhuttos' province; Saraiki 8.4%, the southern Punjab of Multan and Bahawalpur; Muhajir 7.6%, the Urdu-speaking migrants of the partition and their children in Karachi and Hyderabad, the MQM's people; Baloch 3.6%, the tribes of the largest province and the insurgency; others 6.3%, the Hindkowans of Hazara, the Brahui of the Dravidian speech of Kalat, the Kashmiris, the Hazaras of Quetta of the Shia and the bombings, the Chitralis, the Shina and Balti of the north, the Burusho of Hunza, the Kalash of the three valleys of the pagan faith, the Sheedi of the African descent, the 1.5 million registered Afghans and the million more expelled since 2023 (census of 2023) |
| Languages | Punjabi by 37% as the mother tongue, the largest, without official status in its own province; Pashto by 18%; Sindhi by 14.6%, official in Sindh; Saraiki by 12%; Urdu by 9.3% as the mother tongue and by the nation as the lingua franca of the schools, the television and the cities; Balochi 3.4%, Hindko 2.4%, Brahui 1.2%, Kashmiri, Shina, Balti, Khowar, Burushaski, Wakhi, the 70 of the census of 2023; English of the elite, the courts and the signs; Arabic of the madrasas; the Persian of the anthem |
| Religion | Muslim 96.4% by the census of 2023 — the Sunni of the Hanafi school of about 85 to 90% of the Muslims in the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions, the shrines of the saints of Multan and Sehwan and the seminaries of the Deobandis, the Ahl-e-Hadith; the Shia of about 10 to 15%, the largest Shia population after Iran's, the Hazaras of Quetta, the Kurram of the sectarian war of 2024–25 and the Islamabad mosque of the bombing of 6 February 2026 with 31 dead; the Ahmadis of about 0.1% declared non-Muslims by the amendment of 1974 and forbidden to call themselves Muslims by the ordinance of 1984; Hindu 2.1%, the 5 million of Sindh, the Tharparkar and the temples of Karachi, the forced conversions the complaint; Christian 1.4%, the Punjabi Christians of Lahore and Karachi, the sweepers and the nurses, the blasphemy law's accused; Sikh, Parsi, Bahai, the Kalash animists; the blasphemy laws of 1986 with their death penalty and their mobs, the state religion and the Council of Islamic Ideology |
| Human Development Index | 0.544 (2023 data, 2025 report) — low; 168th of 193 |
| The state and the citizen | The army the state's spine since 1958, the four coups of Ayub, Yahya, Zia and Musharraf and the thirty-three years of direct rule, the "hybrid" of the rest, the establishment's hand in every election by the losers' account; the prisons of the politicians, Bhutto hanged, the Sharifs exiled, Khan jailed; the press of the Dawn of Jinnah under the pressure, the journalists sentenced to life on 2 January 2026 for the protests of 2023, the lawyers Imaan Mazari and her husband to 17 years on 24 January 2026 for the posts against the "institutions," the X blocked for a year; the enforced disappearances of the Baloch and the Pashtun, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee of Mahrang Baloch, sentenced to life on 23 June 2026 for the Gwadar protest death of 2024; the polio of the last country with Afghanistan, the vaccinators shot; the feudal lords of Sindh and the Punjab; the Edhi Foundation of the ambulances the civic pride; the women of Benazir, Malala and Maryam Nawaz and of the honor killings |
| Sport | Cricket — the World Cup of 1992 of Imran Khan's "cornered tigers" at Melbourne, the T20 of 2009, the Champions Trophy of 2017 at the Oval against India, the Champions Trophy hosted in February and March 2025 at Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, the first ICC tournament at home in 29 years, the team out in the group; the Pakistan Super League of 2016, the eleventh season won by Peshawar Zalmi on 3 May 2026; the T20 World Cup of 2026 played in Sri Lanka for the refusal to go to India; Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar's 161 km/h, Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi; the hockey of the four World Cups and three golds and the empty stadiums since; Jahangir and Jansher Khan of the squash; Arshad Nadeem, the Olympic champion of 2024 with 92.97 m; the Olympics of 10 medals in all, eight of them hockey; the snooker of the world amateur titles; the mountaineers of the Karakoram, the Sadpara father and son; the polo of Shandur at 3,700 m |
| Diaspora | About 9 million Pakistanis abroad by the ministry's count — the Gulf of 4.7 million, Saudi Arabia's 2.5 million and the Emirates' 1.7 million of the building sites, the shops and the taxis; Britain of 1.6 million, the Mirpuris of Bradford and Birmingham of the Mangla dam's displaced of the 1960s, the mayor of London's parents; the United States of 700,000, the doctors and the engineers; Canada, Italy, Spain, Australia; the remittances of US$38 billion in the year to June 2025, the record and the country's largest earner; the Pakistani doctors of the NHS; the "Roshan" accounts of the diaspora's dollars |
Government
| Form of government | Federal parliamentary republic under the Constitution of 1973 — the president elected by the parliament and the assemblies for five years as head of state, the prime minister the head of government commanding the National Assembly, the Senate of the provinces, the Supreme Court and the Federal Constitutional Court of 2025, the four provinces of the Eighteenth Amendment; the army the power behind by every account, "the hybrid regime" of the analysts made constitutional by the Twenty-seventh Amendment's Chief of Defence Forces; "partly free" by Freedom House, "a hybrid regime" by the Economist's index; the Islamic republic of the state religion and the Council of Islamic Ideology |
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| President | Asif Ali Zardari (Pakistan People's Party — PPP), since 10 March 2024 — the fourteenth president and the first to hold the office twice, of 2008–13 and now; born 26 July 1955 at Karachi, the Sindhi landowner's son who married Benazir Bhutto in 1987, the "Mr. Ten Percent" of the corruption charges of the 1990s and the eleven years in prison without a conviction, the widower of 27 December 2007 who took the party by her will and the presidency of 9 September 2008, the president of the Eighteenth Amendment of 2010 that stripped his own office; elected 9 March 2024 by 411 votes of the electoral college of the parliament and the assemblies against the PTI's Mahmood Khan Achakzai; the signer of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Amendments; the father of the PPP's chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the foreign minister of 2022–23; his term to March 2029 |
| Prime Minister | Shehbaz Sharif (Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) — PML-N), since 3 March 2024 — the twenty-fourth prime minister and the second time, after the term of 11 April 2022 to 13 August 2023 that followed the no-confidence vote against Imran Khan; born 23 September 1951 at Lahore, the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, the three-time prime minister of 1990–93, 1997–99 and 2013–17 disqualified by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case of 28 July 2017, the Ittefaq steel family of Lahore, the chief minister of the Punjab three times of 1997–99, 2008–13 and 2013–18, the "Shehbaz Speed" of the Lahore Metro and the motorways, the exile of 2000–07 in Saudi Arabia, the arrests of the money-laundering cases of 2020 and the acquittals; elected 3 March 2024 with 201 votes of the 336 against the PTI's Omar Ayub with 92, the coalition of the PML-N, the PPP, the MQM and the smaller parties; the prime minister of the IMF program, the four-day war, the Saudi pact and the Iran mediation beside the field marshal, "decorative" in the critics' word and "the elected government" in his own; Ishaq Dar, his brother's in-law and the finance minister of four governments, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister since 28 April 2024; Maryam Nawaz, his niece, the chief minister of the Punjab since 26 February 2024, the first woman to lead a province |
| The Field Marshal | Syed Asim Munir, the Chief of Army Staff since 29 November 2022 and the Chief of Defence Forces since 4 December 2025, the field marshal since 20 May 2025 — born about 1968 at Rawalpindi, the son of a schoolmaster and imam, a hafiz of the Quran, the Sword of Honour of the Officers Training School of Mangla, the Frontier Force Regiment, the chief of Military Intelligence of 2017 and of the ISI of 2018–19, the eight months Imran Khan cut short, the quartermaster general, the corps commander of Gujranwala, named army chief by Shehbaz Sharif in the last days of his eligibility in November 2022 for the very quarrel with Khan; the chief of the 9 May 2023 riots' crackdown and the military trials of the PTI's supporters, of the Afghan expulsions, of the war with India of 7–10 May 2025 fought as "Bunyan-um-Marsoos" after Pahalgam, the promotion to field marshal on 20 May 2025 for "the strategic acumen and courageous leadership," the second in the country's history after Ayub Khan, the White House lunch with Trump of June 2025 as the first Pakistani army chief received alone, the Twenty-seventh Amendment of 13 November 2025 that made him the first Chief of Defence Forces over the army, the navy and the air force and the National Strategic Command of the nuclear weapons, the office notified 4 December 2025 for five years renewable once, to 2030, with the field marshal's rank and immunity for life; the mediator of the Iran war of 2026 who talked to Vance and Witkoff, flew to Tehran three times, in April, May and on 24 August 2026, in his fatigues, and whose request Trump cited on 22 April for holding the attack, "upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif"; the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, the Hilal-e-Jurat of the war; "there has never been a more powerful Pakistani, not since Jinnah," the Indian analyst; "the military's increasing role in foreign policy" the lesser worry and "Munir's tenure" the greater, the Pakistani one |
| Imran Khan and the PTI | Imran Khan, the cricket captain of 1992, the philanthropist of the cancer hospital, the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf of 1996 and the prime minister of 18 August 2018 to 10 April 2022, ousted by the no-confidence vote he called an American conspiracy — in prison since 5 August 2023, the Toshakhana gifts, the cipher case acquitted, the "un-Islamic marriage" case acquitted, the Al-Qadir Trust case of the £190 million and the 14 years of 17 January 2025, his wife Bushra Bibi jailed with him at Adiala; the riots of 9 May 2023 after his first arrest that stormed the corps commander's house in Lahore and the military trials that followed, the 25 sentenced to ten years on 21 December 2024; the election of 8 February 2024 that the PTI fought without its symbol, its candidates as independents, and won by the count of the seats, 93 of the 266 contested, "rigged," its charge, the mobile networks cut on the day, the "Form 47" of the changed tallies, the American and European observers' "flawed"; the march on Islamabad of 24–26 November 2024 broken at D-Chowk with 12 dead by the party's count and none by the government's; the party's petition of 2026 to move him to a hospital for his failing eyesight; the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government of the PTI under Sohail Afridi since 15 October 2025 after Ali Amin Gandapur's removal; the most popular politician of the country by every poll and the man the establishment will not have |
| The 2024 election | Held 8 February 2024 for the 266 contested seats of the National Assembly of 336 and the four provincial assemblies, the mobile networks shut for the day "for security" and the results delayed for days: the PTI-backed independents 93 seats and about a third of the vote, the most of any group; the PML-N 75; the PPP 54; the MQM-P 17 of Karachi; the JUI-F 4; the Sunni Ittehad Council the PTI's vessel for the reserved seats it was refused; turnout about 48%; the 60 seats reserved for women and 10 for non-Muslims allotted to the parties by the commission and the courts against the PTI, the Supreme Court's ruling of 12 July 2024 for the PTI undone by the Twenty-sixth Amendment's court; "the day the people's mandate was stolen," the PTI; "free and fair," the commission; the coalition government of 3 March 2024; the Senate elections of 2 April 2024 and 2027 |
| Parliament | The Majlis-e-Shura — the National Assembly of 336, 266 elected for five years by first past the post from the constituencies and 70 reserved for women and minorities by the parties' shares, Ayaz Sadiq (PML-N) the Speaker since 1 March 2024; the Senate of 96, elected by the provincial assemblies for six years by halves, Yusuf Raza Gilani (PPP) the chairman since 9 April 2024, the former prime minister; the Parliament House of Islamabad of 1986; the PML-N about 110 with the crossings, the PPP about 70, the PTI's independents and the Sunni Ittehad Council about 80, the MQM 22; the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Amendments passed by the two-thirds the coalition found in the small parties and the "missing" of the PTI |
| The next election | The general election by February 2029, the assemblies' five years from 29 February 2024; the Senate by halves in March 2027; the local governments of the provinces by their own calendars; the presidency in 2029 |
| The four-day war of 2025 | The Pahalgam attack of 22 April 2025 in Indian Kashmir, 26 tourists shot by the militants India laid at Pakistan's door and Pakistan denied; India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty "in abeyance" on 23 April, the Wagah closed, the visas canceled; "Operation Sindoor" of the night of 6–7 May 2025, the Indian strikes on nine sites of Punjab and Azad Kashmir, Bahawalpur and Muridke among them, the four days of the drones, the missiles and the air battles, the Rafale India lost by Pakistan's count and the airbases Pakistan lost by India's, "Bunyan-um-Marsoos" of the Pakistani answer of 10 May; the ceasefire of 10 May 2025 announced by Trump and claimed by both, "the Marka-e-Haq," the battle of truth, of the Pakistani telling and its holiday of 10 May; the field marshal's rank of 20 May; the treaty in abeyance since and the water the country fears; the Line of Control of 740 km, the wars of 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999 of Kargil, the nuclear tests of 28 May 1998 at Chagai six days after India's |
| The war with Afghanistan | The Taliban of Kabul the ally that turned — the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan sheltered across the Durand Line by Islamabad's account and denied by Kabul's, the deadliest year of the attacks in a decade in 2025; the clashes of 11–19 October 2025 with the airstrikes on Kabul and the Doha ceasefire of 19 October that the Istanbul talks could not make a peace, the three soldiers freed by Saudi mediation on 17 February 2026; the airstrikes of 22 February 2026 on Nangarhar and Paktika after the Bajaur bombing and the Islamabad mosque, 80 militants by Pakistan's count and 18 civilians by Kabul's; the Taliban attacks on the posts of 26 February, 40 Pakistani soldiers by the Taliban's count and 22 Taliban by Pakistan's; "open war," the defense minister Khawaja Asif declared on 27 February 2026; Kabul bombed on 1 March with the anti-aircraft fire over the city, 67 Afghan soldiers by Pakistan's count of 3 March and the 14 posts destroyed by Kabul's of 6 March, 100,000 displaced by the UN's; the Kabul residential strike of 13 March with six dead and the Kandahar fuel depot; the airstrike on the drug rehabilitation clinic of Kabul of 16 March 2026 with at least 100 dead, "Pakistan blamed," the BBC, denied by Islamabad; the ceasefire of 18 March to 23 March that held in the main; the Karachi Rangers headquarters attack of 27 June by the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar with three Rangers dead and the airstrikes of 28 June on Kunar, Paktia and Paktika, 29 militants by Pakistan's count and the civilians by Kabul's; the Torkham and Chaman gates shut; the million Afghans expelled since October 2023 |
| The Iran war and the mediation | The neighbor of the 909 km border and the Shia of a fifth — the American and Israeli strikes of 28 February 2026 that killed Khamenei, the protests of 1 March across the country with 20 dead, the storming of the American consulate in Karachi with nine dead in the clashes, the field marshal's warning to the Shia clerics; the energy crisis of the Gulf's shut strait, the fuel at the record and the free public transport of Islamabad and the Punjab of 3 April; the mediation — the 15-point American plan carried to Tehran by Islamabad, confirmed 26 March, the "Islamabad Accord" ceasefire plan of 6 April, the two-week ceasefire of 8 April that Trump credited to Munir and Sharif, the Islamabad Talks of 10–11 April at which Vice President Vance led 300 Americans and the speaker Ghalibaf 70 Iranians and Vance announced the failure on 12 April, the extension of 22 April "upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif," Munir at Tehran in May, the Bürgenstock quadrilateral of the United States, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar on Lake Lucerne on 21 June 2026 with Vance and Ghalibaf, "I have two very important people in my life, an Indian and a Pakistani," Vance; the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed electronically by Trump and Pezeshkian on the night of 17–18 June 2026 and by Shehbaz Sharif "as the mediator," the 14 points, the strait to reopen and the blockade to lift, "a diplomatic resolution of the conflict"; the Iranian interior minister Momeni at Islamabad and Rawalpindi on 21 July for "Pakistan's consistent efforts"; Munir's third visit to Tehran of 24 August 2026 to break the deadlock of the memorandum's 60 days; "the right side of events, the wrong side of history," the Indian reading, "an indispensable diplomatic actor," the Turkish; the country of the Afghanistan war repositioned |
| The insurgencies | Balochistan — the Baloch Liberation Army's war of the fifth rising since 1948, the Jaffar Express hijacked between Quetta and Peshawar on 11 March 2025 with the 440 aboard and the 26 hostages and 33 attackers dead by the army's count, the coordinated attacks of 29 January to 5 February 2026 across the province with 36 civilians, two soldiers and 216 militants dead by the government's count, the coast guard ambush off Gwadar of 12 April, the Chagai mine attack of 23 April with nine dead, the Quetta train bombing of 24 May 2026 of the soldiers' train with 30 dead claimed by the BLA, the Barkhan clashes; "Fitna al-Hindustan," the government's name for the Indian hand it sees; the Chinese of Gwadar and the CPEC attacked; the disappearances and the Mahrang Baloch sentence; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — the TTP's war of Bannu, Bajaur, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan and the Waziristans, the Bannu car bomb of 10 May 2026 with 12 police dead, the Bajaur of 16 February with 12, the Wana of March; the Islamic State Khorasan's bombing of the Shia mosque of Islamabad at Friday prayers of 6 February 2026 with 31 dead; the deadliest year in a decade in 2025 by the counts; the Azad Kashmir unrest of the Joint Awami Action Committee of June 2026 with 22 dead in the clashes over the refugee seats |
| Legal system | Common law of the British inheritance with the Islamic law of the Hudood and the blasphemy provisions — the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Yahya Afridi since 26 October 2024, chosen by the parliament's committee under the Twenty-sixth Amendment over the senior judge, the Federal Constitutional Court of the Twenty-seventh Amendment above it for the constitutional questions, the Federal Shariat Court, the five high courts, the anti-terrorism courts of the life sentences and the military courts of the civilians; the death penalty on the books for 30 offenses, the executions of 2014–19 after Peshawar, the moratorium in practice since, the death sentence of 19 May 2026 for the murder of the TikToker Sana Yousaf; the blasphemy law of Section 295-C with its mandatory death sentence, no one executed and the dozens lynched; the Panama disqualification of 2017, the Bhutto "judicial murder" of 1979 the court itself called a wrong in 2024; the enforced disappearances the courts cannot end |
| Local government | 4 provincial governments — the Punjab under Maryam Nawaz (PML-N), Sindh under Murad Ali Shah (PPP) since 2016, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under Sohail Afridi (PTI) since 15 October 2025, Balochistan under Sarfraz Bugti (PPP) since 2 March 2024 — with the governors of the president; Azad Kashmir under Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq (PTI) and Gilgit-Baltistan under Gulbar Khan (PTI); the districts and the local councils of the provincial laws, held and dissolved by the governments of the day, the Karachi mayor Murtaza Wahab of the PPP since 2023; the jirgas of the tribal districts |
| Defense | The Pakistan Armed Forces of about 660,000 active, the sixth-largest in the world, and 550,000 reserves — the army of 560,000, the corps of the Indian front and the "Zarb-e-Azb" of the tribal districts, the navy of the Chinese Hangor submarines and the Type 054 frigates, the air force of the JF-17s of the Chinese partnership, the J-10Cs of the war of 2025 and the F-16s of the 1980s; the nuclear arsenal of about 170 warheads, the Shaheen and Ghauri missiles, the Nasr of the battlefield, the National Strategic Command under the Chief of Defence Forces since 2025, the tests of 28 May 1998 the "Youm-e-Takbeer"; the Inter-Services Intelligence, the state within the state; the field marshal and the CDF; the defense budget raised a fifth after the war of 2025 to about US$9 billion, 2% of GDP and a fifth of the spending; the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia of 17 September 2025, "an attack on one is an attack on both," the nuclear umbrella of the readers; the peacekeepers of the Congo, Darfur and Liberia, among the largest contributors; the Frontier Corps and the Rangers of the paramilitary; no conscription |
| Foreign policy | India the enemy of the four wars and the water; China the "iron brother" of the Karakoram Highway of 1978, the CPEC of 2015, the nuclear program of the 1980s, the JF-17s and the J-10Cs, the Gwadar port and the Chinese workers the BLA hunts; the United States of the aid, the sanctions, the "war on terror," the drones and the Abbottabad raid of 2 May 2011, the Trump lunch of June 2025, the tariff of 19%, the minerals, the crypto and the mediation of 2026 that made Islamabad "indispensable"; Saudi Arabia of the pact of 2025, the deposits and the 2.5 million workers; Iran of the mediation, the border and the gas pipeline never built; Afghanistan of the war; the Gulf, Turkey of the "brother" and the drones, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation of Kashmir and Palestine, the Muslim world of the "fortress"; the Chabahar and the Belt and Road; the Kashmir at the United Nations every year |
| United Nations | Member since 30 September 1947; the Security Council resolutions of 1948 and 1949 on Kashmir and the plebiscite never held, the seat of 2025–26 on the Council, its presidency of July 2025; the peacekeepers since 1960, the second or third largest contributor for decades; the UNMOGIP observers of the Line of Control since 1949; the floods appeals of 2010 and 2022 |
| Other memberships | The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (1969), its second summit at Lahore in 1974; the Commonwealth (1947), left 1972 and rejoined 1989, suspended 1999–2004 and 2007–08; the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (2017); SAARC (1985), frozen; the Economic Cooperation Organization; the Non-Aligned Movement; the WTO (1995); the Nuclear Suppliers Group refused; the Belt and Road; the Islamabad Memorandum's mediator |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$410 billion (fiscal 2025, IMF) — the twenty-fourth economy in the world by the rebased count |
|---|---|
| GDP per capita | About US$1,600 (2025) |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$6,800 (2025) |
| GDP growth | About 2.7% in the year to June 2025 and about 3.5% expected in the year to June 2026, the Iran war's fuel shock and the Gulf's strait the spring's cost; inflation about 5% from the 38% of May 2023, the highest since 1974; the rupee at about 280 to the dollar; the reserves of about US$14 billion from the US$3 billion of the near-default of 2023; the IMF's Extended Fund Facility of US$7 billion of 25 September 2024, the twenty-fourth program, its reviews passed, and the Resilience and Sustainability Facility of US$1.3 billion of 2025; the policy rate cut from 22% to 11%; the fiscal year from July |
| Economy by sector | Services about 57%, the trade, the transport and the telecoms; industry about 19%, the textiles, the cement, the fertilizer and the cars; agriculture about 24% and two workers in five, the wheat, the cotton, the rice and the sugarcane of the Indus |
| Currency | Pakistani rupee (PKR) |
| Textiles and the exports | The textiles of Faisalabad, Karachi and Lahore, the cotton grown, spun, woven and sewn at home, more than half the exports at US$17 billion, the towels, the denim and the bed linen of the Western stores; the rice of the Punjab and Sindh, the basmati of the world's largest exporters with India; the sports goods of Sialkot, the footballs of the World Cups since 1982 and the surgical instruments; the leather; the mangoes of Multan and the oranges of Sargodha; the IT services of the freelancers, US$3 billion and rising; exports of about US$32 billion in all against imports of US$58 billion, the deficit the remittances fill; the American tariff of 19% of 2025 and the Chinese and the Gulf markets |
| Farming and the water | The Indus irrigation of 20 million hectares — wheat of 30 million tons, the flour of the roti; cotton of the textiles, fallen from 14 million bales to 7; rice, sugarcane of the mills of the political families, maize, the mangoes and the citrus, the dates of Khairpur; the buffaloes and the cattle of the fourth-largest milk producer in the world; the feudal estates of Sindh and the small farms of the Punjab; the water of the Indus Waters Treaty "in abeyance" since April 2025 and the dams India builds on the western rivers, the Chenab flows the country watches, "an act of war" if cut, the prime minister said; the floods and the droughts of the climate; the locusts of 2020 |
| Industry and the corridor | The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor of April 2015, US$62 billion of the plans, the power plants of the coal and the hydro that ended the load-shedding of the 2010s at the price of the "circular debt," the Gwadar port, the motorways, the Thar coal, the ML-1 railway of the promises, the second phase of the special economic zones; the cement of Lucky and Bestway, the fertilizer of Fauji and Engro, the cars of Toyota, Suzuki and the Chinese assemblers, the steel, the sugar mills, the pharmaceuticals; the army's Fauji Foundation and the "milbus" of the military businesses; the Reko Diq of Barrick of US$7 billion and the first copper of 2028; the privatization of the airline of December 2025 and the power companies of the plans; the 5G auction of 10 March 2026 for US$507 million |
| Remittances and the informal | The remittances of US$38 billion in the year to June 2025, the record, a tenth of GDP and more than the exports, the Saudi, the Emirati and the British Pakistanis the senders, the "Roshan Digital Accounts" of the diaspora; the informal economy of a third of the whole, the shops, the workshops and the hawala; the tax base of a tenth of GDP, the lowest of the region, the two million filers of 250 million, the farmers and the retailers untaxed and the salaried squeezed; the "Uraan Pakistan" plan of 2024 for the exports and the digital |
| Energy | Electricity from the gas of Sui, the coal of Thar and the imports, the hydropower of Tarbela, Mangla and the Chinese dams of the north, the nuclear of the six Chinese reactors of Chashma and Karachi, the solar boom of the rooftops of 2024–26 that cut the grid's demand; the "circular debt" of the power sector of US$8 billion, the capacity payments to the Chinese and the private plants, the tariffs the IMF demands and the protests they bring; the LNG imports of Qatar and the Iran war's shock of March 2026, the fuel at the record and the free buses of April; the Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline of 2013 never built for the sanctions; the load-shedding of the villages |
| Public finances | Public debt about 70% of GDP, about US$270 billion, the debt service the largest item of the budget, half the revenue; the budget of about Rs 17.6 trillion for the year to June 2027 of June 2026, the defense up a fifth again, the development cut; the IMF of 2024–27; the Saudi, Emirati and Chinese deposits and rollovers of US$12 billion that keep the reserves; the Eurobonds of 2025; the taxes of a tenth of GDP and the "super tax"; the pensions and the subsidies; the "default averted" of 2023 the memory |
| Income classification | Lower-middle income (World Bank) |
Transport & infrastructure
| Main airports | Jinnah International Airport at Karachi, the busiest, the attack of 2014; Allama Iqbal of Lahore; Islamabad International of 2018 at Fateh Jang; Bacha Khan of Peshawar; Quetta; Multan; Sialkot, the first private airport; Skardu, international since 2021 for the mountains; New Gwadar International of October 2024, the Chinese-built airport of a few flights; the 40 airports |
|---|---|
| Airlines | Pakistan International Airlines, the PIA of 1955 that taught Emirates to fly, the losses of a decade, the European ban of 2020 after the licenses scandal lifted in November 2024, the Paris and Manchester flights restored in 2025, sold by the state in December 2025 to a private consortium for its 75%; Airblue of 2004, Serene Air, Fly Jinnah, AirSial, the Gulf carriers of the diaspora |
| Main ports | Karachi, the Karachi Port Trust of the two-thirds of the trade, the Kemari and the container terminals; Port Qasim of 1980 of the industry and the LNG; Gwadar of the CPEC on the Makran coast, the Chinese-run deepwater port of 2007 and the promises, the BLA's attacks and the empty berths; the Pakistan Navy's Ormara; the fishing harbors of the coast |
| Railways | About 7,800 km (4,850 mi) of the broad gauge of the British, Pakistan Railways of the losses and the crowds — the Main Line 1 from Karachi through Lahore to Peshawar, 1,726 km, the CPEC's US$6.7 billion rebuilding of the plans since 2017 not begun; the Karachi–Quetta and the Quetta–Peshawar Jaffar Express of the hijacking of 11 March 2025 and the bombing of 24 May 2026; the Khyber line of the steam safari; the Lahore Orange Line metro of October 2020, the first metro of the country, the Chinese trains; the Karachi Circular of the revivals; the Kohat–Thal and the Sukkur bridge of 1889 |
| Roads | About 264,000 km (164,000 mi), two-thirds paved — the Grand Trunk Road of Sher Shah Suri and the British from Peshawar to Lahore and the Wagah, the N5 of the country; the Lahore–Islamabad M2 motorway of 1997, the first, the Karachi–Hyderabad M9, the Sukkur–Multan M5 of the CPEC, the Hazara motorway; the Karakoram Highway of 1978, 1,300 km from Hasan Abdal to Kashgar over the Khunjerab at 4,693 m, the highest paved international road, built by the Pakistanis and the Chinese with 800 dead, the Attabad tunnels of 2015; the Makran Coastal Highway of 2004; the Bus Rapid Transit of Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi; the driving on the left; the painted trucks of the Bedford and Hino of the "jingle" art; the 30,000 road deaths a year |
| The mountains | The Khyber Pass of the armies since Alexander, the Torkham gate; the Karakoram Highway of the tourists and the trucks; the Babusar and the Lowari, the Shandur; the Fairy Meadows road of the jeeps; the Baltoro treks to K2 Base Camp; the Attabad lake's boats; the Skardu of the climbers; the Kalash valleys of Chitral |
History in dates
| c. 7000 BC | Mehrgarh — the first farmers of South Asia |
|---|---|
| c. 2600 BC | The Indus Valley civilization — Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, to 1900 BC |
| 518 BC | The Achaemenids take Gandhara |
| 326 BC | Alexander at the Hydaspes |
| c. 100 | The Kushans — Gandhara's Buddhas |
| 711 | Muhammad bin Qasim conquers Sindh |
| 1001 | Mahmud of Ghazni |
| 1526 | Babur — the Mughals; Lahore's Badshahi Mosque, 1673 |
| 1799 | Ranjit Singh's Sikh empire at Lahore |
| 1843 | Britain annexes Sindh; the Punjab, 1849 |
| 1893 | The Durand Line |
| 1906 | The Muslim League founded at Dhaka, 30 December |
| 1930 | Iqbal's Allahabad address, 29 December |
| 1933 | "Now or Never" — the name, 28 January |
| 1940 | The Lahore Resolution, 23 March |
| 1947 | Independence, 14 August; the partition; the Kashmir war, October |
| 1948 | Jinnah dies, 11 September |
| 1951 | Liaquat Ali Khan assassinated, 16 October |
| 1956 | The Islamic Republic, 23 March |
| 1958 | Ayub Khan's coup, 27 October |
| 1960 | The Indus Waters Treaty, 19 September |
| 1965 | The war of September |
| 1971 | The war; Bangladesh — Dhaka surrenders, 16 December |
| 1973 | The Constitution, 14 August |
| 1977 | Zia's coup, 5 July |
| 1979 | Bhutto hanged, 4 April; the Afghan war begins |
| 1988 | Zia's plane crash, 17 August; Benazir Bhutto prime minister, 2 December |
| 1998 | The nuclear tests at Chagai, 28 May |
| 1999 | Kargil, May–July; Musharraf's coup, 12 October |
| 2005 | The Kashmir earthquake, 8 October — 87,000 dead |
| 2007 | Benazir assassinated, 27 December |
| 2011 | Bin Laden killed at Abbottabad, 2 May |
| 2014 | The Peshawar school massacre, 16 December — 149 dead |
| 2018 | Imran Khan prime minister, 18 August |
| 2022 | Khan ousted, 10 April; the floods, June–October — 1,739 dead |
| 2023 | The 9 May riots; Khan jailed, 5 August; the census — 241.5 million |
| 2024 | The election, 8 February; Shehbaz Sharif, 3 March; Zardari, 10 March; the 26th Amendment, 21 October |
| 2025 | Khan's 14 years, 17 January; the Jaffar Express, 11 March; Pahalgam, 22 April; the war, 7–10 May; Munir field marshal, 20 May; the Saudi pact, 17 September; the Afghan clashes, October; the 27th Amendment, 13 November; the CDF, 4 December |
| 2026 | The Islamabad mosque, 6 February; the airstrikes, 22 February; "open war," 27 February; the Khamenei protests, 1 March; the Kabul clinic, 16 March; the ceasefire, 18 March; the Iran ceasefire, 8 April; the Islamabad Talks, 10–12 April; the Quetta train, 24 May; the Memorandum, 17–18 June; Bürgenstock, 21 June; the airstrikes, 28 June; Munir in Tehran, 24 August |
Records & firsts
| The fifth-most populous country | About 255 million |
|---|---|
| The second-highest mountain | K2, 8,611 m |
| The highest battlefield | Siachen, 6,000 m |
| The highest paved border crossing | Khunjerab, 4,693 m |
| The largest contiguous irrigation system | The Indus canals |
| The first Islamic republic | 23 March 1956 |
| The first Muslim nuclear power | 28 May 1998 |
| The first woman to lead a Muslim state | Benazir Bhutto, 1988 |
| The youngest Nobel laureate | Malala Yousafzai, 17 |
| The longest winning streak in sport | Jahangir Khan, 555 matches |
| The most hockey World Cups | Four |
| The Olympic javelin record | Arshad Nadeem, 92.97 m |
| The oldest farming village of South Asia | Mehrgarh, c. 7000 BC |
| The first Chief of Defence Forces | Field Marshal Munir, 2025 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Pakistan?
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan — Islami Jumhuriyah Pakistan — the state carved from British India on 14 August 1947 as the homeland of the subcontinent's Muslims by the Muslim League of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the "Quaid-e-Azam," a dominion until the constitution of 23 March 1956 made it the first Islamic republic, and a country of two wings, 1,600 km apart across India, until the eastern wing became Bangladesh in the war of 1971. The name was coined by the Cambridge student Choudhry Rahmat Ali in his pamphlet "Now or Never" of 28 January 1933 as an acronym of the Muslim homelands — Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan — and it means "the land of the pure" in Urdu and Persian, pak being pure and -stan the land.
What is the capital of Pakistan?
Islamabad — the planned city on the Potohar plateau at the foot of the Margalla Hills, laid out by the Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis on a grid of sectors and built from 1961 by the field marshal Ayub Khan to replace Karachi, the capital since 1947, with a seat nearer the army's Rawalpindi and the center of the country, the capital in law since 1967 — about 1.2 million people in the city, 2.5 million with Rawalpindi across the road, the Faisal Mosque of 1986 that was the largest in the world, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and the diplomatic enclave, the D-Chowk of the marches and the Shia mosque of the bombing of February 2026, the city of the Islamabad Talks of April 2026 between the Americans and the Iranians. Karachi, the port and the megacity of 20 million on the Arabian Sea, is the largest city and the economic capital; Lahore, the Mughal and Sikh capital of the Punjab with its fort, its gardens and its smog, the cultural one; Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Peshawar, Multan, Hyderabad and Quetta follow.
How big is Pakistan, and how many people live there?
About 796,095 km² (307,374 sq mi) by the Factbook's count without the territories of Kashmir it administers, and about 881,913 km² with Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan — twice the size of California, the thirty-third-largest country — on the Arabian Sea between Iran and India, with Afghanistan along the Durand Line of the northwest and China across the Karakoram, the Indus and its five rivers of the Punjab the country's spine. The digital census of 2023, the seventh, counted 241,499,431 people, and the estimate for 2026 is about 255 million, the fifth-most populous country in the world, growing at 2.5 percent a year on the highest fertility of South Asia, a median age of 20 — Punjabis a little under half, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Saraikis, the Muhajirs of the partition and the Baloch of the largest and emptiest province, 96 percent Muslim.
What are the highest and lowest points of Pakistan?
K2 — Chhogori, Mount Godwin-Austen — 8,611 m (28,251 ft), the second-highest mountain on earth and the deadliest of the great ones, on the Chinese border in the Karakoram of Gilgit-Baltistan above the Baltoro Glacier, first climbed by the Italians Compagnoni and Lacedelli on 31 July 1954 and in winter only in 2021 by the Nepalis; and the Arabian Sea. Five of the fourteen peaks above 8,000 m stand in Pakistan — K2, Nanga Parbat of the Himalaya, "the killer mountain," Gasherbrum I and II and Broad Peak — where the Karakoram, the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush meet, the greatest concentration of high peaks and of glaciers outside the poles, the Siachen among them, 76 km, the highest battlefield in the world; the Indus, 3,180 km, runs the length of the country from Tibet to the delta below Karachi, and the Khunjerab Pass to China at 4,693 m is the highest paved border crossing on earth.
What currency does Pakistan use?
The Pakistani rupee (ISO code PKR, Rs), of 100 paisa, issued by the State Bank of Pakistan since 1948 in place of the Indian notes overstamped "Government of Pakistan" of the partition year — a currency that fell from 60 to the dollar in 2007 to about 280 in the 2020s through the defaults narrowly missed, the IMF programs of 2019, 2023 and 2024 and the inflation that reached 38 percent in May 2023, stable since the bailout of 2024; the Gulf's remittances of US$38 billion a year the country's largest source of dollars. Clocks keep Pakistan Standard Time, UTC+5, all year, the summer time of 2008–09 abandoned; Pakistan drives on the left, on the roads of the painted trucks.
Who governs Pakistan?
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), head of government since 3 March 2024 in his second term, at the head of a coalition with the Pakistan People's Party of President Asif Ali Zardari, formed after the election of February 2024 in which the independents backed by the jailed Imran Khan won the most seats and the commission gave the reserved seats to the parties that did not; and, by the constitution as amended in November 2025 and by the reckoning of nearly every observer, Field Marshal Asim Munir, the chief of the army since 2022, promoted after the four-day war with India of May 2025 and made the first Chief of Defence Forces over all three services and the nuclear command on 4 December 2025 with a term to 2030 and lifetime immunity, the man who talks to Trump, hosted Vance and carried the messages to Tehran, "there has never been a more powerful Pakistani, not since Jinnah," one critic wrote, and the defense chief whose "consistent efforts" the Iranians praised in Rawalpindi. Imran Khan, the prime minister of 2018–22 and the most popular politician in the country by the polls, has been in Adiala jail since August 2023. The next election is due in 2029.
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