Rawalpindi – A Brief Profile

Rawalpindi takes its name from the Rawal Lake nearby. It is a major city on the grand trunk road between Peshawar and Lahore and has always been an important transit point. It is one of the oldest settlements along the Khyber-Peshawar-Lahore route.

Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Alexander the Great, The Scythians, Parthians. Kushana, Sassanian, and Changez Khan, were among the people who stopped here with their armies. Jehangir, the Mughal emperor, mentions Rawalpindi in his memoirs, the Jahangir-nama. Much later, British forces fought many battles in this region to take the Khyber Pass and establish control over Afghanistan.

Rawalpindi developed as a military centre and today it is the headquarters of the Pakistan armed forces. It is an important trade and commercial centre, only 20km away from Islamabad. The population of Rawalpindi is over three million.