Punjab (Pakistan)

Punjab ( Urdu پنجاب; Punjab) is the most populous province of Pakistan. It includes the Pakistani part of the large landscape Punjab has an area of ​​205,344 km ² and an estimated 91,379,615 inhabitants ( 2011). The capital of Punjab is Lahore. In the province, more than half of Pakistan's population.

Geography

The Punjab province borders the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - with it the Capital Territory Islamabad surrounds - and to the semi-autonomous Azad Kashmir and the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab on the Indian side Rajasthan ( clockwise, starting in the southwest ).

The provincial capital of Punjab is Lahore. Other major cities include Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Multan and Gujranwala. Flows from west to east are the Indus, Jhelum, Chanab, Ravi and Satluj.

Population

The most common mother tongues in Punjab are the Panjabi with 75.2 % of the population and considered by some to be a dialect of Punjabi Saraiki with 17.4 % of the population. Additional 4.5 % speak Urdu as their mother tongue. (Data from the census of 1998).

The population is 97.2 % Muslim, 2.3% are other Christians. Of the numerous before the partition of India and the Punjab minorities of Hindus ( Census 1941: 13.3 %) and Sikh ( census 1941: Other 11.9%) have remained only numerically small residues.

Administrative divisions of the province

There are 36 districts in Punjab, Pakistan:

History

1947 with the partition of India was the larger western part of Punjab's capital Lahore with the new state of Pakistan. In this division, there was civil war -like conditions: Hindus and Muslims fled to the east to the west. Both sides committed over several weeks, numerous massacres of the other group.