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Punjab, its name meaning 'Land of Five Rivers'; is the richest, most fertile and most heavily populated province of Pakistan. (Originally the five rivers referred to the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas, but the last is now in Indian Punjab only, so the Indus is now included as Pakistan's fifth river). In Punjab live over 70 million people-more than half the population of the entire country. Geographically, it is a land of contrasts, from the alluvial plain of the Indus River and its tributaries to the sanddunes of the Cholistan Desert. From the verdant beauty, of the pine covered foothills of the Himalayas to the strangely convoluted lunar landscape of the Potohar Plateau and the Salt Range.
Monsoon rains fall on northern Punjab, making the belt from Lahore to Rawalpindi-lslamabad and continuing north into the foothills, the only part of Pakistan to get more than 500 millimeters of rain a year. Further south, the five rivers provide adequate water for irrigating most of the land on the alluvial plains that separate and surround them.
Punjab grows most of Pakistan's wheat, rice, barley, maize, pulses, oilseeds, Sugarcane and tobacco. The area around Multan is the cotton-growing center of the country. Cotton is Pakistan's most important cash crop, exported in raw form, as yarn and in fabrics and clothing. Punjab is also the home of much of Pakistan's industry. Textiles, steel, chemicals, sporting goods, electrical appliances, surgical instruments and fertilizers are all made here, mainly around the large cities of Faisalabad, Multan, Sialkot, Gujranwala and the provincial capital, Lahore. Punjab is also rich in mineral resources, including salt, Gypsum, coal, oil and gas.
Geographical position and the fertility of its soil have made Punjab an important center of human endeavor from prehistoric times. Man lived on the banks of the Soan River 50,000 years ago, and the Indus Civilization flourished at Harappa and other sites as early as 2500 B.C. Taxila, near modern Islamabad, was a center of culture and learning for a thousand years from 500 BC to AD 500. When Alexander the Great visited Taxila in 326 B.C. It was known throughout the ancient world for its university. Islamic learning and architecture developed at Uch and Multan during the 13th and 14th centuries.
In the 1 7th century, Lahore became one of the greatest Mughal cities in the subcontinent. A town near Lahore was the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the l5th-century founder of the Sikh religion, and Lahore was the capital from which Maharaja Ranjit Singh ruled his 19th century Sikh Empire. The British coveted this fertile region, and overthrew the Sikhs in 1849, annexing Punjab to their Indian dominions, with Lahore as its provincial capital. Finally, it was in Lahore that the All India Muslim League passed, on 23 March 1940, its Resolution for the Creation of Pakistan.
At Partition, which came about seven years later, wealthy Punjab, like Bengal in the east, was itself partitioned, its multi-communal population of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs precluding its total inclusion in either India or Pakistan. At the same time, no line drawn through the province could fail to place many millions of people on the wrong side of the border. The result was a nightmare of massacres and mass-migrations.
When the Pakistanis decided to build a new capital from scratch, it was in Punjab, the fertile heart of the country, that a site was chosen. The construction of Islamabad began in 1962 near the most beautiful part of the province, the Murree Hills, adjacent to Rawalpindi and the Grand Trunk Road, Pakistan's east-west axis. Islamabad is no longer considered part of Punjab, forming its own capital territory,
The best time to visit northern Punjab is in the spring, from February to April, and in the autumn, from September to November. Southern Punjab is extremely hot in summer, so Multan is at its best in winter, from November to February.