33 Countries of Origin’ Profiles

PAKISTAN Produced by the University of Coventry (UK) GEOGRAPHY: Pakistan is located in the south of Asia, bordering the Arabian sea beneath it. It is surrounded by India to the east, Iran and Afghanistan to the west and China to the north 1. Its capital is Islamabad, in the foothills of the Himalayas in the northern part of the country, and its largest city is Karachi, in the south on the coast of the Arabian Sea 2 . CAPITAL: Islamabad POPULATION: 197,002,757. Pakistan ranks number 6 in the list of countries by population 3 . LANGUAGE: There are many languages spoken in Pakistan. Punjabi is the most frequent ly used language with 48% of its populat ion speaking it , Sindhi accounts for 12%, Saraiki (a Punjabi variant) 10%, Pashto (alternate name, Pashtu) 8%, Urdu 8%, Balochi 3%, Hindko 2%, Brahui 1%, Engl ish (official ; l ingua franca of Pakistani el ite and most government ministries), Burushaski , and other 8% 4 . Urdu is the mother tongue of only a small proportio n of the population of Pakistan, but it is the country’s only official language; it is taught in the schools along with the regional languages 5 . 1 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html 2 https://www.britannica.com/place/Pakistan 3 http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/pakistan-population/ 4 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html 5 https://www.britannica.com/place/Pakistan/Plant-and-animal-life#toc23690