Pakistan is a beautiful, unspoiled tourist destination
stretching from the Arabian Sea to the high
mountains of Central Asia, and covers an area of
803944 square kilometers, three times that of the
United Kingdom. Geographically this country falls into three main
regions: the mountainous north, where the
Karakoram, Himalaya and Hindu Kush ranges
meet, the vast but sparsely populated plateau of
Bal
ochistan, the fertile Punjab and Sindh plains of
the mighty Indus River. The Himalayan and the Karakoram are the world’s
youngest mountain ranges still growing at the rate
of 7 millimeters annually as the Indian Geological
plate continues drifting north with its northern edge,
nosing down under the Asian plate, pushing the
mountains upwards. Northern Pakistan has an ocean of high peaks,
with five of them over 8000 meters and 108 above
7000 meters above sea level within a radius of 180
kilometers. The Indus River 3200 kilometers long is the 3rd
longest in Asia after the Yangzi and Yellow Rivers,
and is the lifeline of Pakistan with its tributaries. It
provides water for the largest irrigation system in the
world to some 64,000 km long canals, in the Indus
Plain, where the great Indus Valley Civilization
flourished between 3000 and 1500 BC, roughly at
the time of Mesopotamian and Egyptian Empires.
