Pakistan

• Pakistan is officially known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
• It sits at the crossroads of the strategically important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and Western Asia.
• The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze AgeIndus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures.
• Pakistan has the seventh largest standing armed forces in the world and is a declared nuclear weapons state, being the only nation in the Muslim world
• Pakistan has the second largest Muslim population in the world. It is second to Indonesia.
• About one fifth of the population live below the international poverty line
• The official and national sport of Pakistan is Field hockey.
• The modern state of Pakistan was established on 14 August 1947 in the eastern and northwestern regions of British India, where there was a Muslim majority.
• Dispute over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir led to the First Kashmir War in October 1947.
• Pakistan is a democratic parliamentary federal republic with Islam as the state religion.
• The Kashmir conflict is a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, the most northwesterly region of South Asia. The two countries have fought at least three wars over Kashmir—the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1947, 1965 and 1999 and several skirmishes over the Siachen Glacier.
  
• India claims the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir and administers approximately 45.1% of the region, including most of Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and the Siachen Glacier.
• Pakistan, which controls approximately 38.2% of Kashmir, consisting of Azad Kashmir and the northern areas of Gilgit and Baltistan.
• More than sixty languages are spoken in Pakistan, including a number of provincial languages. Urdu, the lingua franca and a symbol of Muslim identity and national unity, is the national language and is understood by over 75% of Pakistanis.
• English is the official language of Pakistan, used in official business, government, and legal contracts.