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Islamabad

Capital of PakistanIslamabad lies at the foot of the Margalla Hills, on the northern edge of the Pothohar Plateau in the north of Pakistan, right beside the older city of Rawalpindi.

Why it's the capital

After independence the capital was Karachi, but in 1958 a commission was set up to choose a site near Rawalpindi for a new one. The government moved to Rawalpindi for a while in the early 1960s, then to Islamabad in 1966, once the main building work was done.

Fun facts

  1. The name Islamabad means 'City of Islam'; it joins the words Islam and abad.
  2. The Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis drew the master plan, which divides the city into sectors named by a letter and a number, each about 2 km by 2 km.
  3. The Faisal Mosque, designed by the Turkish architect Vedat Dalokay, has no usual dome and is shaped like a Bedouin tent; it was the largest mosque in the world from 1986 to 1993.

Finding it on the globe

Start at Kabul and move east, slightly south, across the border into Pakistan. Islamabad is in the north of the country, where the plateau meets the first hills.

Easy to mix up

Many players tap Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, far to the south on the Arabian Sea. Islamabad and Rawalpindi have grown together and are often called the Twin Cities.

Sources: Wikipedia: Islamabad, Wikipedia: Faisal Mosque, Wikipedia: Karachi