Islamabad is the nation’s capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. 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,e officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,f is a country in South Asia.
- In July 2022, the United Nations published its 2022 World Population Prospects, a bi annually-updated database where key demographic indicators are estimated and projected worldwide down to the country level.
- Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia.
- The civil aviation industry, deregulated in 1993, operates with a blend of public and private entities while state-owned Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) dominates, carrying 73% of domestic passengers and all domestic freight.
- Pakistan and India have fought four wars, three of which (1948–49, 1965, and 1999) were over Kashmir.
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The table below shows Pakistan’s provinces and territories by their historical population. While every one of Pakistan’s administrative units currently has a growing population, the pace of growth is uneven throughout the country due to differing levels of fertility, mortality, as well as domestic and international migration. As of 2013, Pakistan boasts approximately 151 airports and airfields, encompassing both military and civilian installations.486 Despite Jinnah International Airport serving as the primary international gateway, significant international traffic also flows through Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Faisalabad, Sialkot, and Multan airports. The civil aviation industry, deregulated in 1993, operates with a blend of public and private entities while state-owned Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) dominates, carrying 73% of domestic passengers and all domestic freight. Established as a parliamentary democracy that espoused secular ideas, the country has experienced repeated military coups, and religion—that is to say, adherence to the values of Sunni Islam—has increasingly become a standard by which political leaders are measured.
Nationality, ethnicity, and language
Although the table is originally ranked by district population size, clicking the headers will allow the reader to sort the table. Many of the surveys above also recorded fertility rate data broken down by each of Pakistan’s administrative units, while many more surveys have been taken explicitly focusing on a specific province or territory. The fertility rate data recorded in these surveys is displayed in the table below. The table below shows Pakistan’s population structure by five-year age group and sex using data from the 2023 census.8 The country’s population structure is relatively young, with a median age of 19. With low death rates and a declining birth rate, the country is in the third stage of its Demographic transition.
Classical period
Pakistan encompasses a rich diversity of landscapes, starting in the northwest, from the soaring Pamirs and the Karakoram Range through a maze of mountain ranges, a complex of valleys, and inhospitable plateaus, down to the remarkably even surface of the fertile Indus River plain, which drains southward into the Arabian Sea. It contains a section of the ancient Silk Road and the Khyber Pass, the famous passageway that has brought outside influences into the otherwise isolated subcontinent. Lofty peaks such as K2 and Nanga Parbat, in the Pakistani-administered region of Kashmir, present a challenging lure to mountain climbers.
Kashmir conflict
The Ahmadiyya movement shrunk in size (both raw numbers and percentage) between 1998 and 2017, while remaining concentrated in Lalian Tehsil, Chiniot District, where approximately 13% of the population is Ahmadiyya. Pakistan is bounded by Iran to the west, Afghanistan to the northwest and north, China to the northeast, and India to the east and southeast. On the other hand, Christianity in Pakistan, while increasing in raw numbers, has fallen significantly in percentage terms since the last census. Christians are concentrated in the most developed parts of Pakistan, Lahore District (over 5% Christian), Islamabad Capital Territory (over 4% Christian), and Northern Punjab.
The resulting impact on the life of the subcontinent has reverberated ever since in the rivalries between the two countries, and each has continued to seek a lasting modus vivendi with the other. Pakistan and India have fought four wars, three of which (1948–49, 1965, and 1999) were over Kashmir. Since 1998 both countries have also possessed nuclear weapons, further heightening tensions between them.
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It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million,c having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. As is true with population growth, urbanisation is an uneven and nonlinear process. With an urbanisation rate of 54% as of 2023, Sindh is the country’s most urbanised province. This is largely fuelled by the growth of Karachi, which economically dominates the province and attracts migrants from the rest of the country. On the other hand, the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan both share very low urbanisation rates.
Pakistan is considered a middle power nation, with the world’s seventh-largest standing armed forces. It is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with similarly diverse geography and wildlife. 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.
Part of the Pakistani-administered territory comprises the so-called Azad Kashmir (“Free Kashmir”) region—which Pakistan nonetheless considers an independent state, with its capital at Muzaffarabad. The remainder of Pakistani-administered Kashmir consists of Gilgit and Baltistan, known collectively after 2009 as Gilgit-Baltistan (formerly the Northern Areas). In July 2022, the United Nations published its 2022 World Population Prospects, a bi annually-updated database where key demographic indicators are estimated and projected worldwide down to the country level. They prepared estimates of Pakistan’s population for every year from 1950 to 2021, as well as projections for future decades.5 This data includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. In July 2022, the United Nations published its 2022 World Population Prospects, a biennially-updated database where key demographic indicators are estimated and projected worldwide down to the country level. They prepared the following estimates of demographic indicators in Pakistan for every year from 1950 to 2021, as well as projections for future decades.5 This data includes Azad chicken road game download Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released religious data of Pakistan Census 2017 on 19 May 2021.68 96.47% are Muslims, followed by 2.174% Hindus, 1.27% Christians, 0.09% Ahmadis and 0.02% others.
- Christians are concentrated in the most developed parts of Pakistan, Lahore District (over 5% Christian), Islamabad Capital Territory (over 4% Christian), and Northern Punjab.
- As is true with population growth, urbanisation is an uneven and nonlinear process.
- The table below shows Pakistan’s population structure by five-year age group and sex using data from the 2023 census.8 The country’s population structure is relatively young, with a median age of 19.
- Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released religious data of Pakistan Census 2017 on 19 May 2021.68 96.47% are Muslims, followed by 2.174% Hindus, 1.27% Christians, 0.09% Ahmadis and 0.02% others.
- Although the table is originally ranked by district population size, clicking the headers will allow the reader to sort the table.
- It is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with similarly diverse geography and wildlife.
Military history
Along the Indus River, the artery of the country, the ancient site of Mohenjo-daro marks one of the cradles of civilization. The 2017 census showed marginal increase in the share of Hindus.The census also recorded Pakistan’s first Hindu-majority district, called Umerkot District. The MICS surveys above also provide data on the district level, although they come with a far higher margin of error. This margin of error is lessened for larger districts from where larger sample sizes were utilised. In the chart below, the latest fertility rate data for each Pakistani district with a population of over 2 million as of the 2017 census can be found.
In addition, parts of northern Pakistan—particularly the areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa formerly designated as Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)—have become a haven for members of several militant Islamist groups, including the Taliban of neighboring Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. In various parts of the country, instances of ethnic, religious, and social conflict have flared up from time to time, often rendering those areas virtually ungovernable by the central authorities, and acts of violence against religious minorities have increased. At the time of partition in 1947, as many as 10 million Muslim refugees fled their homes in India and sought refuge in Pakistan—about 8 million in West Pakistan. An approximately equal number of Hindus and Sikhs were uprooted from their land and familiar surroundings in what became Pakistan, and they fled to India. Unlike the earlier migrations, which took centuries to unfold, these chaotic population transfers took hardly one year.
In 2017, Pakistan’s sex ratio stood at 105 males per 100 females,9 which is much more balanced than South Asia as a whole. The 2017 census recorded a population of 207,684,626 living in Pakistan’s four provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory.9 The census also reported that Azad Kashmir’s population stood at 4,045,3671 and Gilgit-Baltistan’s population was 1,492,924.2 This meant that the total population of Pakistan in 2017 was 213,222,917. Since 1947 the Kashmir region, along the western Himalayas, has been disputed, with Pakistan, India, and China each controlling sections of the territory.