Sindh

Landscape of Sindh

Indus delta

About 600,000 hectares of mangrove, the fifth-largest delta in the world.

Thar

Sand dunes, peacocks and mud-walled villages towards the Indian border.

Kirthar range

Limestone hills west of the Indus, and Ranikot's 32 km fort wall.

Rivers and lakes of Sindh

Lower Indus

Controlled by the Sukkur, Guddu and Kotri barrages.

Manchhar Lake

Pakistan's largest freshwater lake, home to boat-dwelling Mohana families.

Arabian Sea

Roughly 350 km of Sindh coast, with Karachi's fishing harbour at its centre.

Food of Sindh

Sindhi biryani

Layered with potato, yoghurt and dried plum.

Karachi street food

Bun kebab, biryani carts and Burns Road at midnight.

Palla fish

Indus hilsa, caught upstream of Kotri and grilled whole.

Heritage of Sindh

Mohenjo-daro

UNESCO listed Bronze Age city dated to about 2500 BCE.

Makli necropolis

One of the largest funerary sites on Earth, 14th–18th century.

Shah Jahan Mosque

Thatta, 1647, with 93 domes and no need for a loudspeaker.

Culture and crafts of Sindh

Ajrak

Block-printed cloth in madder red and indigo, dyed at Bhit Shah and Matiari.

Sufi nights

Dhamaal drumming at Sehwan Sharif every Thursday.

Rilli quilts

Patchwork quilts stitched by women across rural Sindh.

Wildlife of Sindh

Markhor

The national animal, a wild goat of the northern ranges.

Snow leopard

Roughly 200–420 remain in the Karakoram, Himalaya and Hindu Kush.

Houbara bustard

A winter migrant to the deserts of Balochistan and Cholistan.

Main cities and places in Sindh

Each one opens its own page: its story, rivers and lakes, food, heritage, culture, wildlife and what to see.

Karachi

City

1. 3300–1300 BCE
   Indus Valley Civilisation

   One of the world's three earliest urban civilisations. Mohenjo-daro (Sindh) and Harappa (Punjab) had planned grid streets, brick sewers, and standardised weights 4,500 years ago. Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites in modern Pakistan.

2. 711–1200 CE
   Arrival of Islam

   In 712 CE, the 17-year-old Umayyad general Muhammad bin Qasim captured Sindh and Multan — one of the earliest Muslim conquests east of Persia. Two centuries later, Mahmud of Ghazni made Lahore his eastern capital (1021), beginning eight centuries of Islamic rule over the region.

3. 1206–1526
   Delhi Sultanate & Sufi shrines

   The Delhi Sultans ruled from what is now Pakistan and North India. Sufi masters — Data Ganj Bakhsh (Lahore), Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (Sehwan), Bahauddin Zakariya and Shah Rukn-e-Alam (Multan), Baba Farid (Pakpattan) — turned the subcontinent's spiritual landscape and are still visited by millions.

4. 1849–1947
   British Raj

   The British built the Karachi–Lahore–Peshawar rail network, the Sukkur Barrage (1932) and the world's largest contiguous canal system in Punjab. The North-West Frontier Province and the tribal agencies became the front line of the Great Game with Russia, and the Khyber Pass was fortified against Afghanistan.

5. 1906–1947
   The Pakistan Movement

   The All-India Muslim League was founded in 1906. In 1930, Allama Iqbal called for a separate Muslim state in his Allahabad address. The Lahore Resolution of 23 March 1940 (passed at Minto Park, now Iqbal Park) formalised the demand — Pakistan was created on 14 August 1947 with Muhammad Ali Jinnah as its first Governor-General.

6. 1947–1971
   Independence & early years

   Partition displaced 14 million people — the largest migration in human history. Karachi served as Pakistan's first capital until Islamabad was inaugurated (1967). The 1965 Indo-Pak war was fought largely across the Punjab plains. In 1971, East Pakistan became Bangladesh.

No photographs published from Sindh yet.

Questions about Sindh