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The Punjab or (Pāk-Panjab), Land of Five Rivers (Urdu: صوبہ پنجاب) is a unitary province in Pakistan. The traditional and provincial capital of Punjab has always been Lahore. Punjab has a population of 90 million people and an area of 79,284 mi² or (205,344 km²) in terms of land area the province of Punjab is greater in land area than Kyrgyzstan but smaller than Belarus.
Etymology[edit]
The word Punjab is a combination of the Indo-Iranian words panj (five) and āb (water), and thus the (land of) five rivers.[4] The five rivers are the Indus, Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi and Sutlej. Sometimes, in English, there can be a definite article before the name i.e. the Punjab.[5] The name is also sometimes spelled as Panjab or Panjaab or Punjaab. The name Punjab was given to the region by Turkic Muslim conquerors and popularized during the reign of the Mughal Empire in the 17th century CE.
Punjabi history[edit]
Before 1947 both Pakistan and the Republic of India were ruled by the British. The Punjab province used to be a part of British Punjab. On the 3rd of June in 1947/Mountbatten Plan was announced which required both the Punjab and Bengal provincial assemblies to vote on whether they wanted to keep their provinces United or Partitioned in favour of Independence. Both Provincial Assemblies voted in favour of partitioning their provinces respectively Muslim majority voted yes, Sikh minority voted yes, Hindu minority voted no to formal Partition thereon. However the United Punjab Assembly which was elected in 1946 was divided into two sovereign parts. One was West Punjab Assembly within Pakistan and the other was East Punjab Assembly within India to decide whether or not the province of Punjab be partitioned. After voting on both sides, Partition and Independence was decided thereafter. The British province of Punjab was split between Pakistan and Bharat via the Radcliffe Line and the Ferozepur District and the sub-district of Gurdaspur awards were originally meant to go to the Pakistanis, however it was decided on August 18th to allocate them to East Punjab. Today India has a state called Punjab since 1966. A bus service was launched in 2006 connecting Lahore in Pakistani Punjab with Amritsar in the Republic of India, through the Wagah International border. This was the first bus service between the two Punjabs for almost 60 years.[6] On the 28th of November in 2018, Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, inaugurated the construction of the Kartarpur Corridor. The corridor is a border crossing that will connect two important Sikh shrines – Dera Baba Nanak Sahib in NW India and Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan – and provide access for Sikh pilgrims from Indian Punjab to Pakistani Punjab. The opening of a religious corridor in Punjab is being described by some as a means of expanding religious, cultural and intellectual exchanges. The future of the corridor and its potential impact on India-Pakistan relations is contingent upon whether the two states will be able to develop sustained channels through which to discuss, firstly, the modalities of religious travel, and, secondly, the expansion of such linkages to other sectors such as trade and commerce.
Overview[edit]
Wagah, named Wahga in Pakistan, is a village through which the controversial Radcliffe Line, the boundary permanent Demarcation line dividing the Indian Punjab from Pakistani Punjab upon the Partition of India, was drawn.[7] The village was divided by independence in 1947. Today, the eastern half of the village remains in the Republic of India while the western half is in Pakistan.
It is particularly known for the elaborate Wagah border ceremony that happens at the International border gate before 5PM each day.[7]
Since the 1950s, Punjab industrialized rapidly. New factories were established in Lahore, Multan, Sialkot and Wah. In the 1960s the new city of Islamabad was built near Rawalpindi.
[8]Agriculture continues to be the largest sector of Punjab's economy. The province is the breadbasket of the country as well as home to the largest ethnic group in Pakistan, the Punjabis. Unlike neighbouring India, there was no large-scale redistribution of agricultural land. As a result, most rural areas are dominated by a small set of feudalistic Zamindar or the land-owning families.
In the 1950s there was tension between the eastern and western halves of Pakistan. In order to address the situation, a new formula resulted in the abolition of the province status for Punjab in 1955. It was merged into a single province West Pakistan. In 1972, after East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh, Punjab again became a province.
Punjab witnessed major battles between the armies of India and Pakistan in the wars of 1965 and 1971. Since the 1990s Punjab hosted several key sites of Pakistan's nuclear program such as Kahuta. It also hosts major military bases such as at Sargodha and Rawalpindi. The peace process between India and Pakistan, which began in earnest in 2004, has helped pacify the situation. Trade and people-to-people contacts through the Wagah border are now starting to become common. Indian Sikh pilgrims visit holy sites such as Nankana Sahib.
Starting in the 1980s, large numbers of Punjabis migrated to the Middle East, Britain, Spain, Canada and the United States for economic opportunities, forming the large Punjabi diaspora. Business and cultural ties between the United States and Punjab are growing.
About 120 million people live in Punjab, just over half of Pakistan's population of 225 million.
Geography[edit]
Punjab is Pakistan's second largest province at 205,344 km2 (79,284 sq mi) after Balochistan and is located at the northwestern edge of the geologic Indian plate in South-central Asia. The capital and largest city is Lahore which was the historical capital of the wider Punjab region. Other important district cities include Multan, Faisalabad, Sheikhupura, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Jhelum and Rawalpindi. Undivided Punjab is home to six rivers, of which five flow through Pakistani Punjab. From west to east, these are: the Indus, Jhelum, Beas, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej. Nearly 60% of Pakistan's population lives in the Punjab. It is the nation's only province that touches every other province; it also surrounds the federal enclave of the national capital city at Islamabad.This geographical position and a large multi-ethnic population strongly influence Punjab's outlook on National affairs and induces in Punjab a keen awareness of the problems of the Pakistan's other important provinces and territories. In the acronym P-A-K-I-S-T-A-N, the P is for PUNJAB.
The province is a mainly a fertile region along the river valleys, while sparse deserts can be found near the border with Rajasthan and the Sulaiman Range. The region contains the Thar and Cholistan deserts. The Indus River and its many tributaries traverse the Punjab from north to south.
The landscape is amongst the most heavily irrigated on earth and canals can be found throughout the province. Weather extremes are notable from the hot and barren south to the cool hills of the north. The foothills of the Himalayas are found in the extreme north as well.
| Provincial flag | Flag of Punjab | 
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|---|---|---|
| Provincial seal | Emblem of Punjab | 
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| Provincial animal | Punjab urial[9] | 
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| Provincial bird | Blue peafowl[9] | 
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| Provincial tree | Indian rosewood[9] | 
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| Provincial flower | Sadabahar[9] | 
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| Provincial staple | Wheat | 
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| Provincial crop | Sugarcane | 
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| Provincial fruit | Oranges | .jpg){kind=small}
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| Provincial dish | Nihari | 
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| Provincial dance | Punjabi dance | 
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| Provincial instrument | Punjabi Dhol | 
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| Provincial sport | Kushti | 
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Districts of Punjab (Pakistan)[edit]
Related pages[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ 2017 Census Archived 15 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ {{Cite web|url= https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thenews.com.pk/amp/318989-punjab-leads-in-human-development-index title=Punjab leads in Human Development Index
- ↑ "Provincial Assembly – Punjab". Archived from the original on 1 February 2009. Retrieved 7 January 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Singh, Pritam (2008). Federalism, Nationalism and Development: India and the Punjab Economy. London; New York: Routledge. p. 3. ISBN 0415456665. Search this book on
- ↑ "How to obtain a police certificate - India". Cic.gc.ca. 2009-11-09. Retrieved 2010-07-18.
- ↑ India-Pakistan bus links Punjab - BBC News
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Frank Jacobs (3 July 2012). "Peacocks at Sunset". Opinionator: Borderlines. The New York Times. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
- ↑ "Google". www.google.com. Retrieved 2017-04-14.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedwiisymbols - ↑ "Population by Religion" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
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