Southern Asia · PAK
Pakistan
The story · 11 chapters
How it was drawn
The Indus valley, ruled in turn from Persia, Central Asia, Afghanistan and India, became Pakistan at the partition of British India in 1947, lost its eastern wing in 1971 and still disputes Kashmir with India.
Play the story Take the first lessonThrough the ages
Rivals in history
The kingdoms, empires and states Pakistan fought or stood against, from the first to today.
- Achaemenid Persian Empire518 BC to 330 BC
Darius I adds Gandhara and the Indus valley to the Persian Empire around 518 BC; according to Herodotus its Indian province pays the largest tribute of all, in gold dust. Persian rule ends with Alexander's conquest.
- Alexander's Macedonian Empire327 BC to 325 BC
Alexander the Great crosses the Indus in 326 BC and defeats King Porus at the Hydaspes, the Jhelum river. His exhausted army refuses to go further east, and he returns down the Indus to the sea.
- Umayyad Caliphate711 to 713
Muhammad bin Qasim, sent by the Umayyad governor of Iraq, conquers Sindh in 711 to 713, defeating its king, Dahir, near the Indus in 712 and taking Multan.
- Ghaznavid Empire1001 to 1186
Mahmud of Ghazni defeats the Hindu Shahi king Jayapala near Peshawar in 1001 and raids India year after year. His dynasty holds the Punjab, with Lahore as its eastern capital, until the Ghurids take it in 1186.
- Mongol Empire1221 to 1306
Genghis Khan defeats Jalal al-Din of Khwarazm on the banks of the Indus in 1221. Mongol armies sack Lahore in 1241 and raid the Punjab for decades, until the Delhi sultans stop the last great invasions in the early 1300s.
- Timur's empire1398 to 1399
Timur crosses the Indus in 1398, sweeps through the Punjab and sacks Delhi, leaving the Delhi Sultanate broken. His descendant Babur founds the Mughal Empire in 1526.
- Durrani Empire and the Afghan emirs1748 to 1837
Ahmad Shah Durrani invades the Punjab repeatedly from 1748. Later Ranjit Singh's Sikhs take Multan in 1818, Kashmir in 1819 and Peshawar from the Afghans, and hold it after the Battle of Jamrud in 1837.
- British East India Company1843 to 1849
The Company defeats the Talpur amirs of Sindh at Miani in 1843, then fights two wars with the Sikh kingdom, in 1845 to 1846 and 1848 to 1849, and annexes the Punjab.
Pakistan and India fight over Kashmir in 1947 to 1948, 1965 and 1999, and over East Pakistan in 1971. Both have tested nuclear weapons since 1998, and a four day conflict in May 2025 again followed an attack in Kashmir.
Afghanistan votes against Pakistan's admission to the United Nations in 1947 and has never accepted the Durand Line as the border. The frontier still sees repeated clashes, including with Taliban forces in recent years.
Today
Pakistan now
The Indus Valley civilization, one of the oldest in the world and dating back at least 5,000 years, spread over much of modern-day Pakistan. , remnants of this culture fused with the migrating Indo-Aryan peoples. The area underwent successive invasions in subsequent centuries from the Persians, Greeks, Scythians, Arabs (who brought Islam), Afghans, and Turks. The Mughal Empire flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries; the British came to dominate the region in the 18th century.
- Capital
- Islamabad
- Government
- federal parliamentary republic
- Head of government
- Shehbaz Sharif
- Head of state
- Asif Ali Zardari
- Languages
- English, Urdu
- Area
- 796,100 km²
Through time
Then and now
- Population248 million2023 · 35.8 million in 1950
- Life expectancy67.6 years2023 · 34.2 years in 1950
- GDP per person$5,5312022 · $1,025 in 1950
- Living in cities40%2025 · 17% in 1950
- Literacy59%2021 · 18% in 1950
- Political regimeElectoral autocracy2025 · Closed autocracy in 1950
- Military alliancesNone of these2024 · None of these in 1950
- Military spending2.9% of GDP2025
- War deaths1.3 per 100,0002025
Population: HYDE 3.3, Gapminder and UN WPP. GDP per capita: Maddison Project Database 2023. Urban share: UN WPP. Life expectancy: Riley, HMD, UN WPP. Literacy: OWID historical estimates, World Bank, UNESCO. Military spending: SIPRI. War deaths: UCDP. Political regime: V-Dem, Regimes of the World. All via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). Alliances and organization memberships: compiled by Atlas. Satellites in orbit: CelesTrak SATCAT. Modern borders, backcast.
Relations
Close partners and tensions
Close partners
- China
- Saudi Arabia
- Iran, Islamic Rep.
Summarised from World Bank and Wikipedia data, updated 24 October 2026.