National-Census-Report-2023-1.pdf

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the Karakoram Range. Many glaciers such as Siachen, Hispar, Biafo, Baltoro,3 and Batura cover these ranges and keep the region’s temperature cold compared to other parts of the country.

3 The Baltoro Glacier, located in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, is one of the longest glaciers outside the polar regions, stretching approximately 63 kilometers (39 miles) through the Karakoram Range. It is renowned for its dramatic landscapes, with its ice mass surrounded by some of the world's highest peaks, including K2, Broad Peak, and the Gasherbrum massif. This glacier serves as a gateway to Concordia, a famed meeting point of glaciers offering breathtaking views of towering mountains. The Baltoro Glacier is fed by major tributaries like the Godwin-Austen and Vigne Glaciers and forms the headwaters of the Braldo River, eventually contributing to the Indus River system. (Baltoro image by Guilhem Vellut, licensed under CC-BY-SA-2.0. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltoro_Glacier#/media/File:Baltoro_glacier_from_air.jpg. K2: The Savage Mountain The second highest mountain in the world, K2 is considered one of the most scariest and dangerous treks in the world for moutain climbers with a comparatively very high fatality count. (Photo by Daniel Born on Unsplash) Baltoro Glacier The Baltoro Glacier, at 62 kilometers long, is one of the longest glaciers outside the polar region. It is located in Baltistan, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, and runs through part of the Karakoram mountain range.

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Figure 1.2: Location of K2 Within the Defacto Boundaries of Pakistan

Nanga Parbat: The Killer Mountain (8126m) Gasherbrum I: The Hidden Peak (8080m) Broad Peak from Concordia (8051m) Gasherbrum II: The Shining Wall (8035m)

Figure 1.3: Pakistan’sٔ4ٔOtherٔPeaksٔOverٔ8,000ٔMetresٔinٔHeight

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The Hindu Kush Mountain Range branches off from the Himalayas at Pamir Knot where the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China meet. These mountains have high peaks such as the Tirich Mir (7,690 metres), and Noshaq (7,369 metres).
II. Western Bordering Mountains The western bordering mountains run south from the Hindu Kush in several parallel ranges. South of the Kabul River, the direction of ranges changes from north-south to east-west. The Koh-i-Sufaid Mountains Range predominantly runs east to west with an average height of 3600 metres,with the highest peak Sakaram rising to 4,761 metres.
The passes through the western bordering mountains are of special geographical and historical importance. The Khyber Pass at Landi Kotal is 1,067 metres high and leads to the valley of Peshawar at the head of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The Tochi Pass connects Ghazni of Afghanistan with Bannu of Pakistan via North Waziristan. The Bolan Pass follows the river, of the same name, and connects the Kachhi-Sibi plain with Quetta.
III. Sulaiman Mountains and Kirthar Hills The Sulaiman-Kirthar Mountains lie between Balochistan Plateau and the Indus plains and belong to the Himalayan Orogeny. These mountains occupy the bordering region between the Iranian Plateau and the Indian subcontinent located to the east of the Lut Desert and to the west of the Indus River. The Sulaiman Mountains rise to an average height of 600 metres that gradually decreases southwards. Further south, the Sulaiman Mountains meet the Kirthar Mountains which merge into the Kohistan area of Sindh.
IV. Mountains and Hills of Sub-Himalayas
The Sub-Himalayas or Siwaliks are the southern most ranges which do not rise to great heights like the other Himalayan ranges. Their average height is 600-1200 metres. The highest point is near Sakesar at 1500 metres.
1.1.2 Plateaus The two important plateaus of Pakistan are the Balochistan Plateau and the Potohar Plateau.
I. The Balochistan Plateau The Balochistan Plateau is located to the west of the Sulaiman-Kirthar Mountain Range. The plateau covers a large area and is divided into two parts by the Chaman and Ornach-Nal faults.
The western part is predominantly comprise of a number of sub-parallel ranges. The important ranges from south to north are the Makran Coastal Range (600 metres) and the Central Makran Range (900-1200 metres). There are also the Siahan, Ras Koh, and the Chagai ranges, which rise to the height of 1000 to 2000 metres. The highest peak, the Ras Koh has a height of 3,010 metres.

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The Central Makran Range Makran Coastal Highway II. The Potohar Region The Potohar Plateau lies to the south of the Northern Mountains between the Indus River on the west and the Jhelum River on the east. Its northern boundary is formed by the Kala Chitta Range and the Margalla Hills and the southern boundary by the Salt Range. The Soan Basin is located between the
northern and southern ranges.

Kusak Fort: A standalone rock is visible from a distance and is similar to the world -famous Sigriya rock in Sri Lanka. Image courtesy of Dawn. Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1261004, retrieved on December 6, 2024.

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The Kala Chitta hills ranging from 450 to 900 metres in height are cut by deep valleys. A few miles north are the Margalla Hills with an average height of 900 metres, extending eastward up to the Kaurang River. The main Potohar Plateau extends north of the Salt Range and is 300-600 metres high. The Salt Range, with an average height of 750 to 900 metres has a steep face towards the south and slopes gently into the Potohar Plateau in the north. The Sakesar peak (1527 metres) is the highest point in the Salt Range.
1.1.3 Plains The plains are mostly formed by the Indus River and its tributaries which can be sub-divided into four major parts:
i. Trans-Indus plain ii. Upper Indus plain iii. Lower Indus plain iv. Deltaic plain I. Trans-Indus Plain The Trans-Indus Plain lies to the west of Indus River and includes the plains of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khan Divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the sub-mountain plain in Dera Ghazi Khan Division of Punjab. Among these plains, the Peshawar Plateau is surrounded by mountains on three sides and is open on the eastern side along the Potohar Plateau.
II. Upper Indus Plain The Upper Indus Plain is different from the Lower Indus Plain as the major tributaries of the Indus River including Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej divide the land into several interfluves or doabs (a region lying between and reaching to the confluence of two rivers). The Upper Indus Plain is subdivided into four large doabs namely Sindh Sagar, Chaj, Rachna and Bari in addition to the Bahawalpur plain and Derajats or Sulaiman piedmont.
III. Lower Indus Plain The Lower Indus Plain is monotonously flat, sloping to the south with an average gradient of only one meter in ten kilometres. The Kachhi-Sibi Plain is bounded on the north by the Marri-Bugti Ranges and on the west by the Kalat Ranges. The Sindh Plain forms the major part of the Lower Indus Plain. The Upper Indus Plain is agriculturally less developed with more water logging and salinity than areas further south. The Lower Sindh Plain which starts from Hyderabad is predominantly a cover flood plain.
IV. Deltaic Plain The Indus Delta has its apex at some distance north-east of Thatta where distributaries spread out to form the Deltaic Plain. Two of the larger distributaries are Ochito and Gungro.
Kala Chitta

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1.1.4 Desert Areas The desert areas of Pakistan lie along the south-eastern border of Pakistan and spread over an extensive area in eastern Bahawalpur Division covering Ghotki, Sukkur, Khairpur, Sanghar and Mirpur Khas. The desert area is separated from the central irrigated zone of the plain by the dry bed of the Ghagra River in Bahawalpur and the Eastern Nara in Sindh. The five deserts of Pakistan are:
i. Thar Desert ii. Cholistan Desert iii. Thal Desert iv. Kharan Desert v. The Indus Valley Desert

I. Thar Desert The Thar Desert (also known as the Great Indian Desert) is a large arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is the largest desert of Pakistan and the 18th largest desert in the world, with an area of more than 200,000 km2. The Thar desert covers eastern Sindh province and the southeastern portion of Punjab province4 and some part of the Indian state of Rajhastan. II. Cholistan Desert The Cholistan Desert, also locally known as Rohi, is situated thirty kilometres from Bahawalpur District in Punjab Province and covers an area of 26,300 km.5 It adjoins the Thar Desert extending over to Sindh and into India. III. Thal Desert The Thal Desert is situated in Punjab province between the Jhelum and Sindh rivers near the Potohar Plateau. Its total length from north to south is 306 kms while it ranges from 30-110 kms in width. This region is divided into the districts of Bhakkar, Khushab, Mianwali, Jhang, Layyah, and Muzaffargarh.
IV. Kharan Desert Locally known as the Sandy Desert, the Kharan Desert is located in Balochistan province covering an area of about 48,051 km2. The largest playa (seasonal lake in a desert basin) of Balochistan is located in this desert, and is known as Hamun-i-Mashkel. The water of Kharan basin is entirely used for agriculture and domestic use and thus it is also called closed basin.6

4 Deserts Of Pakistan. InfopediaPK – All facts in one site. Accessed December 4, 2024, from https://infopediapk.weebly.com/deserts-of-pakistan.html. 5 … ibid … 6 Pakistan Travel Places. Kharan Desert. Accessed April 12, 2018 for NCR-2017, from https://pakistantravelplaces.com/destination/kharan-desert/

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V. The Indus Valley Desert The Indus Valley Desert covers an area of 19,424 km2 in northwestern Punjab Province between the Chenab and Indus rivers. The Indus Valley Desert is dry with only 600–800 mm (20–30 in) of rainfall per year, and temperature ranging from freezing in winters to extremely hot ( above 45°C /113°F) in summer.7 1.1.5 Water Resources All the major rivers and streams flowing through the country are part of the Indus River system which is the longest river flowing all through Pakistan. A few small rivers and streams in Balochistan are either lost in the inland drainage or flow directly to the Arabian Sea.
I. The Indus The transboundary Indus river basin has a total area of 1.12 million km 2 distributed between Pakistan (47 percent), India (39 percent), China (8 percent) and Afghanistan (6 percent). The Indus river basin stretches from the Himalayan mountains in the north to the dry alluvial plains of Sindh province in Pakistan in the south and finally flows out into the Arabian Sea. In Pakistan, the Indus river basin covers around 520 000 km 2, or 65 percent of the territory, comprising the whole of the provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and m ost of the territory of Sindh province and the eastern part of Balochistan. The drainage area lying in India is approximately 440 000 km 2, nearly 14 percent of the total area of the country, in the States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Chandigarh. Only about 14 percent of the total catchment area of the basin lies in China, covering just 1 percent of the area of the country, and Afghanistan, where it accounts for 11 percent of the country’s area.8 In Pakistan, Indus River has two main tributaries: the Kabul on the right bank and the Panjnad on the left. The Panjnad is the flow resulting from the five main rivers 9: Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, known as the western rivers, and Ravi, Bias and Sutlej, known as the eastern rivers.10 All the rivers of the Indus system are peren+nial. These rivers supply water to the entire Indus Basin Irrigation System , and are a ided by a number of smaller rivers (Swat, Kunar in Chitral, Soan, etc.) and streams/Nullahs.

7 Southern Asia:Eastern Central Pakistan, Deserts and Xeric Shrublands (n.d.). WWF. Accessed April 4, 2018, for NCR - 2017, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/im1302. 8 Indus Ttransboundary River Basin (2011). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved December 3, 2024, from https://www.fao.org/aquastat/en/countries-and-basins/transboundary-river-basins/indus. 9 Literally, Punjab means five-waters. 10 The Indus Waters Treaty allocates the Western Rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan and the Eastern Rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India. At the same time, the Treaty allows each country certain uses on the rivers allocated to the other. The Treaty was signed in 1960 after nine years of negotiations between India and Pakistan with the help of the World Bank, which is also a signatory. The negotiations were the initiative of former World Bank President Eugene Black. Seen as one of the most successful i nternational treaties, it has survived frequent tensions, including conflict, and has provided a framework for irrigation and hydropower development for more than half a century. Former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower described it as "one bright spot ... in a very depressing world picture that we see so often." (Source: The World Bank at https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/sar/brief/fact-sheet-the-indus-waters-treaty-1960-and-the-world-bank) Pakistan Bureau of Statistics

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The Indus River flows near Sukkur, a prominent city in Sindh, Pakistan. II. Major Lakes There are several natural and man-made lakes in Pakistan. The largest lake is the Manchar Lake, which is also the largest lake in South Asia. T he Rush Lake, situated at an altitude of 4,700 metres, is the highest lake in Pakistan and the 25 th highest in the world . The second highest lake in Pakistan is the Karambar Lake, with an altitude of 4,272 metres. One of the well-known artificial lakes is Banjosa Lake.
Lake Saiful Muluk is a stunning alpine lake located near the town of Naran in the Kaghan Valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is famous for its breathtaking natural beauty, crystal -clear waters, and surrounding snow-capped peaks, including the towering Malika Parbat, the highest peak in the area. Attabad Lake, also known as Gojal Lake, is located in the Hunza Valley, Gilgit -Baltistan, Pakistan. It was formed on January 4, 2010, due to a massive landslide near the village of Attabad, which blocked the Hunza River. The resulting natural dam created the lake, submerging several villages, agricultural land, and a portion of the Karakoram Highway. Besides these, there are some other beautiful scenic lakes, which are the centre of attraction for travelers and tourists from across the world.