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KarachiAn old settlement, Karachi was developed as a port and trading center by Hindu merchants in the early 18th cent. In 1843 it passed to the British, who made it the seat of the Sind government. Steady improvements in harbor facilities made Karachi a leading Indian port by the late 19th cent., while agricultural development of the hinterland gave it a large export trade. Karachi served as Pakistan's capital from 1947, when the country gained independence, until 1959, when Rawalpindi became the interim capital pending completion of Islamabad. The political base of the Bhutto family (see Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali and Bhutto, Benazir), Karachi has been troubled since the 1980s by violence between local Sindhis and the descendants of muhajirs, the Muslim immigrants who fled to Pakistan following partition in 1947. The lawlessness in the city was further aggravated by Sunni-Shiite fighting in the 1990s and by ethnic tensions involving migrant Pashtuns in the 21st cent. In the late 1990s the government began efforts to suppress the violence, but these have been only sporadically successful.
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- Khairpur
Khairpur, city (1981 pop. 61,447), SE Pakistan, in Sind prov. It trades in wheat, cotton, tobacco, and dates and is linked by road and rail to Karachi. Manufactures include textiles, carpets, ...
- Islamabad
Islamabad, city (1998 pop. 524,500), capital of Pakistan, NE Pakistan, just NE of Rawalpindi, the former interim capital. Construction of Islamabad [city of Islam] as the capital, replacing Ka...
- Sind
Sind, province (1998 pop. 29,991,161), c.50,000 sq mi (129,500 sq km), SE Pakistan, roughly coextensive with the lower Indus River valley and bounded by India on the east and south and by the ...
- Indus
Indus, chief river of Pakistan, c.1,900 mi (3,060 km) long, rising in the Kailas range in the Tibetan Himalayas, and flowing W across Jammu and Kashmir, India, then SW through Pakistan to the ...
- Jinnah, Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 1876–1948, founder of Pakistan, b. Karachi. After his admission to the bar in England, he returned to India to practice law. Early in his career he was a fervent supporte...
- Khan, Abdul Qadeer
Khan, Abdul Qadeer (A. Q. Khan), 1936–, Pakistani metallurgical engineer, often called the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, b. Bhopal, India. He moved (1952) to Pakistan and studied at the D....
- Musharraf, Pervez
Musharraf, Pervez, 1943–, Pakistani army officer, president of Pakistan (2001–), b. Delhi. After the partition of British India, his family resettled in Karachi, Pakistan; he spent (1949–56) s...
- Arabian Sea
Arabian Sea, ancient Mare Erythraeum, northwest part of the Indian Ocean, lying between Arabia and India. The Gulf of Aden, extended by the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Oman, extended by the Persi...
- Pakistan
Pakistan, officially Islamic Republic of Pakistan, republic (2005 est. pop. 162,420,000), 310,403 sq mi (803,944 sq km), S Asia. Pakistan is bordered by India on the east, the Arabian Sea on t...
