Pakistan is situated in the
western part of the Indian subcontinent, with Afghanistan and Iran on the west, India on the
east, and the Arabian Sea on the south. The name
Pakistan is derived from the Urdu words
Pak -meaning pure and
stan -meaning
country. It is nearly twice the size of California.The northern and
western highlands of Pakistan contain the towering Karakoram and Pamir mountain ranges, which include some of the world''s highest peaks: K2 (28,250 ft; 8,611 m) and Nanga Parbat (26,660 ft; 8,126 m). The Baluchistan Plateau lies to the west, and the Thar Desert and an expanse of alluvial plains, the Punjab and Sind, lie to the east. The 1,000-mile-long (1,609-km) Indus River and its tributaries flow through the country from the Kashmir region to the Arabian Sea.- Pakistan was one of the two original successor states to British India, which was partitioned along religious lines in 1947. For almost 25 years following independence, it consisted of two separate regions, East and West Pakistan, but now it is made up only of the western sector. Both India and Pakistan have laid claim to the Kashmir region; this territorial dispute led to war in 1949, 1965, 1971, and 1999, and remains unresolved today.......