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Welcome to Pakistan!
Home of my penpal Shazad!

This is Shazad, and he is very much happy that you decided to visit his country!

Pakistan's captial is Islamabad. The countrey is about 803, 943 square km in area and houses K-2, the second highest mountain in the world. Urdu is the official language which most Pakistanis speak although it is the mother tongue of only around 10% of people, Interesting since it is the language used in schools. There are over 300 tribal languages and dialects, and English is also widely spoken, but not as widely as it once was, since it was replaced by Urdu as the official language in 1988. You'd think if there are that many languages around, there would have to be at least one that the whole population speaks, but no, there isn't. Unbelievable. 97% of Pakistanis are Muslim, a small percentage are Christians and Hindus. The flag has a white crescent and star on a green background, bordered by a white stripe on the left side. Pakistan has 4 provinces, Punjab, Sind, North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan. Each province is home to a different cultural group, more or less anyway, each has it's own customs, characteristics and language. The Punjabis, who, believe it or not, mainly live in Punjab and speak Punjabi, form the largest group. Other major tribes are the Sindhis in Sind who speak Sindhi, the Pushtuns in the NWFP who speak Pushtu, and the Baluch in Baluchistan who speak Baluchi. There are several smaller tribes also, the Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurrum and North and South Waziristan (did I miss anyone?) all rule their own tribal areas. Some of them are nomadic and freely wander across the border into Afganistan. The NWFP is bordered by Afghanistan and China. Here, the 3 great mountain ranges act as a natural border between the countries. The mountains which seperate the NWFP from Afghanistan are especially dangerous and the area is almost barren. The infamous Khyber Pass lies in these mountains. Particularly dangerous place, not somewhere you'd go by yourself.... Peshawar, the capital of NWFP is only about 48km from the Khyber Pass. It is an ancient city, showing landmarks from each wave of invaders over yhe centuries. The southern part of the NWFP is flat and very dry. Towards the southeast though, there are snow-capped mountains, glaciers, lakes, green valleys and tall dense forests. Pakistan was once a part of India, it was formed when the long history of conflict between the HIndus and Muslims came to a head. It was decided that the areas of India where the highest percentage of the population were Muslim, should become the new countrey of Pakistan. Pakistan the name, was created with P for Punjab, A for the Afghans in the northern areas, K for Kashmir, S for Sind, and 'istan', the Urdu word for 'Land of." So Pakistan translates to "Land of the Pure." Originally when Pakistan was formed, it was made up of two parts. West Pakistan was the area that is now just Pakistan, and East Pakistan was the area now known as Bangladesh. Since these two areas were so far apart, naturally there were problems and it was decided it would be much easier to seperate. Info from the Discovering our Heritage series, the Cultures of the World series, and off the top of my head.

This is referred to as the "Switzerland of Pakistan" for a reason! Not what you'd expect really.

See Leila's Page for Islamic info. To compare the Pakistani Rupee with anything else, go here. To see pictures of this country's paper money, go to Ron Wise's Paper Money Homepage Go look at the Interknowledge Pakistan Site, very informative. For a page showing the holidays of Pakistan, look at the Global Calender To see the language makeup of Pakistan, go to the Ethnologue.

Want to get in touch with me?
rosie_0801@yahoo.com