Ancient period

It is believed that the earliest evidence of human habitation in Punjab traces to the Soan Valley of the Pothohar, between the Indus and the Jhelum rivers, where Soanian culture developed between 774,000 BC and 11,700 BC. This period goes back to the first interglacial period in the second Ice Age, from which remnants of stone and flint tools have been found.^[30] The Punjab region was the site of one of the earliest cradle of civilizations, the Bronze Age Harrapan civilization that flourished from about 3000 B.C. and declined rapidly 1,000 years later, following the Indo-Aryan migrations that overran the region in waves between 1500 and 500 B.C.^[31] The migrating Indo-Aryan tribes gave rise to the Iron Age Vedic civilization, which lasted till 500 BC. During this era, the Rigveda was composed in Punjab,^[32] laying the foundation of Hinduism. Frequent intertribal wars in the post-Vedic period stimulated the growth of larger groupings ruled by chieftains and kings, who ruled local kingdoms known as Mahajanapadas.^[31] Achaemenid emperor Darius the Great, in 518 BCE crossed the Indus and annex the regions up to the Jhelum River.^[33] Taxila is considered to be site of one of the oldest education centre of south asia and was part of the Achaemenid province of Hindush.^[34][35]

One of the early kings in Punjab was Porus, who fought the famous Battle of the Hydaspes against Alexander the Great.^[36] The battle is thought to have resulted in a decisive Greek victory; however, A. B. Bosworth warns against an uncritical reading of Greek sources who were obviously exaggerative.^[36] Porus refused to surrender and wandered about atop an elephant, until he was wounded and his force routed.^[36] When asked by Alexander how he wished to be treated, Porus replied "Treat me as a king would treat another king".^[37] Despite the apparently one-sided results, Alexander was impressed by Porus and chose to not depose him.^[38][39][40] Not only was his territory reinstated but also expanded with Alexander's forces annexing the territories of Glausaes, who ruled to the northeast of Porus' kingdom.^[38] The battle is historically significant because it resulted in the syncretism of ancient Greek political and cultural influences to the Indian subcontinent, yielding works such as Greco-Buddhist art, which continued to have an impact for the ensuing centuries.

Multan was the noted centre of excellence of the region which was attacked by the Greek army led by Alexander the Great. The Malli tribe together with nearby tribes gathered an army of 90,000 personnel to face the Greek army. This was the largest army faced by the Greeks in the entire subcontinent.^[41] During the siege of the city's citadel, Alexander leaped into the inner area of the citadel, where he faced the Mallians' leader. Alexander was wounded by an arrow that had penetrated his lung, leaving him severely injured. The city was conquered after a fierce battle.^[42][43]

The region was then divided between the Maurya Empire and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in 302 B.C.E. Menander I Soter conquered Punjab and made Sagala (present-day Sialkot) the capital of the Indo-Greek Kingdom.^[44][45] Menander is noted for becoming a patron and converting to Greco-Buddhism and he is widely regarded as the greatest of the Indo-Greek kings.^[46]

Medieval period

Islamic conquest

Islam emerged as the major power in Punjab after the Umayyad caliphate led by Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the region in 711 AD.^[31] The city of Multan became a center of the Ismaili sect of Islam. After the Umayyads conquered the key cities of Uch and Multan, they ruled the far areas of Kashmir. Islam spread rapidly.^[41][47]

In the ninth century, the Hindu Shahi dynasty originating from the region of Oddiyana replaced the Taank kingdom in the Punjab, ruling much of Punjab along with eastern Afghanistan.^[31][48][49] In the 10th century, the tribe of the Gakhars/Khokhars, formed a large part of the Hindu Shahi army according to the Persian historian Firishta.^[50]

Ghaznavid

The Turkic Ghaznavids in the tenth century attacked the regions of Punjab. Multan and Uch were conquered after 3 attacks and Multan's ruler Abul Fateh Daud was defeated,^[51] famous Sun Temple was destroyed. This attack ended the 3 centuries of Islamic rule over Punjab.^[41] Ghaznavids overthrew the Hindu Shahis and consequently ruled for 157 years, gradually declining as a power until the Ghurid conquests of key Punjab cities of Uch, Multan and Lahore by Muhammad of Ghor in 1186, deposing the last Ghaznavid ruler Khusrau Malik.^[41][52]

Following the death of Muhammad of Ghor in 1206, the Ghurid state fragmented and was replaced in northern India by the Delhi Sultanate and for some time independent sultanates ruled by various Sultans.^[41] The Delhi Sultanate ruled Punjab for the next three hundred years, led by five unrelated dynasties, the Mamluks, Khalajis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids and Lodis.

Tughlaqs

Ghiyath al-Din Tughlaq, the former governor of Multan and Dipalpur founded the Tughlaq dynasty in Delhi and ruled the subcontinent region. Earlier, he served as the governor of Multan and fought 28 battles against Mongols from there and saved Punjab and Sindh regions from advances of Mongols and survived. After his death, his son Muhammad Tughlaq became the emperor.^[41]

Mongol invasion

The 15th century saw the rise of many prominent Muslims from Punjab. Khizr Khan established the Sayyid dynasty, the fourth dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate after the fall of the Tughlaqs.^[53]

In 1398, Timur attacked the Punjab region. After his invasion, Khizr Khan established the fourth dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. According to Richard M. Eaton, Khizr Khan was the son of a Punjabi chieftain.^[53] He was a Khokhar chieftain who travelled to Samarkand and profited from the contacts he made with the Timurid society^[55] Later on, Delhi Sultanate, weakened by the invasion of Emir Timur, could not control all regions of the Empire and different local kingdoms appeared.

Langah Sultanate

In 1445, Sultan Qutbudin, chief of Langah, a Jat Zamindar tribe^{[56][57][58][59]} established the Langah Sultanate in Multan. The Sultanate included regions of southern and central Punjab and areas of Khyber and Balochistan. A large number of Baloch settlers arrived and the towns of Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan were founded.^[60]

During the most of 15th century, the Khokhars and Gakhars tribes were in general revolt in the Pothohar region. Jasrath Khokhar was one of their major chiefs who helped Sultan Zain Ul Abideen of Kashmir to gain his throne and ruled over vast tracts of Jammu and North Punjab. He also conquered Delhi for a brief period in 1431 but was driven out by Mubarak Shah.^[61]

Modern period

Mughal Era

The Mughals came to power in the early sixteenth century and gradually expanded to control all of Punjab.^[62] During Mughal period Punjab region was divided into two provinces; Province of Multan and Province of Lahore. The Mughal Empire ruled the region until it was severely weakened in the eighteenth century.^[31] As Mughal power weakened, Afghan rulers took control of the region.^[31] Contested by Marathas and Afghans, the region was the center of the growing influence of the Sikhs, who expanded and established the Sikh empire as the Mughals and Afghans weakened, ultimately ruling the Punjab and territories north into the Himalayas.^[31]

The Sikh Empire ruled Punjab from 1799 until the British annexed it in 1849 following the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars.^[63]

British Rule

Most of the Punjabi homeland formed a province of British India, though a number of small princely states retained local rulers who recognized British authority.^[31] The Punjab with its rich farmlands became one of the most important colonial assets.^[31] Lahore was a noted center of learning and culture, and Rawalpindi became an important military installation.^[31]

Most Punjabis supported the British during World War I, providing men and resources to the war effort even though the Punjab remained a source of anti-colonial activities.^[64] Disturbances in the region increased as the war continued.^[31] At the end of the war, high casualty rates, heavy taxation, inflation, and a widespread influenza epidemic disrupted Punjabi society.^[31] In 1919 a British officer ordered his troops to fire on a crowd of demonstrators, mostly Sikhs in Amritsar. The Jallianwala massacre fueled the Indian independence movement.^[31] Nationalists declared the independence of India from Lahore in 1930 but were quickly suppressed.^[31]

When the Second World War broke out, nationalism in British India had already divided into religious movements.^[31] Many Sikhs and other minorities supported the Hindus, who promised a secular multicultural and multireligious society, and Muslim leaders in Lahore passed a resolution to work for a Muslim Pakistan, making the Punjab region a center of growing conflict between Indian and Pakistani nationalists.^[31] At the end of the war, the British granted separate independence to India and Pakistan, setting off massive communal violence as Muslims fled to Pakistan and Hindu and Sikh Punjabis fled east to India.^[31]

The British Raj had major political, cultural, philosophical, and literary consequences in the Punjab, including the establishment of a new system of education. During the independence movement, many Punjabis played a significant role, including Madan Lal Dhingra, Sukhdev Thapar, Ajit Singh Sandhu, Bhagat Singh, Udham Singh, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Bhai Parmanand, Choudhry Rahmat Ali, and Lala Lajpat Rai.

After Independence

At the time of partition in 1947, the province was split into East and West Punjab. East Punjab (48%) became part of India, while West Punjab (52%) became part of Pakistan.^[65] The Punjab bore the brunt of the civil unrest following partition, with casualties estimated to be in the millions.^{[66][67][68][69]}

Another major consequence of partition was the sudden shift towards religious homogeneity that occurred in all districts across Punjab owing to the new international border that cut through the province. This rapid demographic shift was primarily due to wide-scale migration but also caused by large-scale religious cleansing riots which were witnessed across the region at the time. According to historical demographer Tim Dyson, in the eastern regions of Punjab that ultimately became Indian Punjab following independence, districts that were 66% Hindu in 1941 became 80% Hindu in 1951; those that were 20% Sikh became 50% Sikh in 1951. Conversely, in the western regions of Punjab that ultimately became Pakistani Punjab, all districts became almost exclusively Muslim by 1951.^[70]

Topography

Punjab's landscape consists mostly consists of fertile alluvial plains of the Indus River and its four major tributaries in Pakistan, the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej rivers which traverse Punjab north to south – the fifth of the "five waters" of Punjab, the Beas River, lies exclusively in the Indian state of Punjab. The landscape is amongst the most heavily irrigated on earth and canals can be found throughout the province. Punjab also includes several mountainous regions, including the Sulaiman Mountains in the southwest part of the province, the Margalla Hills in the north near Islamabad, and the Salt Range which divides the most northerly portion of Punjab, the Pothohar Plateau, from the rest of the province. Sparse deserts can be found in southern Punjab near the border with Rajasthan and near the Sulaiman Range. Punjab also contains part of the Thal and Cholistan deserts. In the South, Punjab's elevation reaches 2,327 metres (7,635 ft)^{[citation needed]} near the hill station of Fort Munro in Dera Ghazi Khan.

Climate

Most areas in Punjab experience extreme weather with foggy winters, often accompanied by rain. By mid-February the temperature begins to rise; springtime weather continues until mid-April, when the summer heat sets in. The onset of the southwest monsoon is anticipated to reach Punjab by May, but since the early 1970s, the weather pattern has been irregular. The spring monsoon has either skipped over the area or has caused it to rain so hard that floods have resulted. June and July are oppressively hot. Although official estimates rarely place the temperature above 46 °C, newspaper sources claim that it reaches 51 °C and regularly carry reports about people who have succumbed to the heat. Heat records were broken in Multan in June 1993, when the mercury was reported to have risen to 54 °C. In August the oppressive heat is punctuated by the rainy season, referred to as barsat, which brings relief in its wake. The hardest part of the summer is then over, but cooler weather does not come until late October.

In early 2007, the province experienced one of the coldest winters in the last 70 years.^[74]

Punjab's region temperature ranges from −2° to 45 °C, but can reach 50 °C (122 °F) in summer and can touch down to −10 °C in winter.

Climatically, Punjab has three major seasons:^[75]

• Hot weather (April to June) when temperature rises as high as 123 °F (51 °C).
• Rainy season (July to September). Average rainfall annual ranges between 96 cm sub-mountain region and 46 cm in the plains.
• Cold / Foggy / mild weather (October to March). Temperature goes down as low as 35.6 °F (2.0 °C).

Weather extremes are notable from the hot and barren south to the cool hills of the north. The foothills of the Himalayas are found in the extreme north as well, and feature a much cooler and wetter climate, with snowfall common at higher altitudes.^{[citation needed]}

Population

The province is home to over half the population of Pakistan, and is the world's second-most populous subnational entity, and the most populous outside of India.

Languages

The major native language spoken in the Punjab is Punjabi, representing the largest language spoken in the country. Punjabi is recognized as the provincial language of Punjab but is not given any official recognition in the Constitution of Pakistan at the national level.

Several Punjabic dialects and languages are spoken in vast region of Punjab namely Majhi, Pothwari, Saraiki among many others. In the southern half of Punjab, the major language is Lahnda or western Punjabi consisting of many varieties of Punjabic dialects and languages including Multani, Derawali, Riyasati, which are sometimes labelled as Saraiki. In Central Punjab Majhi dialect is most spoken. While in the north there are speakers of Hindko and Pothwari dialects.^[84]

Pashto is also spoken in some parts of Punjab, especially in Attock, Mianwali and Rawalpindi districts.^[85]

Religions

According to the 2017 census, the population of Punjab, Pakistan was 109,989,655.^[86] With 107,541,602 adherents, Muslims comprise the largest religious group, with a Sunni Hanafi majority and a Shia Ithna 'ashariyah minority, forming approximately 97.8 percent of the population.^[86] The largest non-Muslim minority is Christians with 2,063,063 adherents, forming roughly 1.9 percent of the population.^[86] Hindus form 211,641 people, comprising approximately 0.2 percent of the population.^[86] The other minorities include Sikhs, Parsis and Baháʼís.^[86][88]

More information Religious group, 1921: 29 ...

Religion in Punjab, Pakistan (1901–2017)

Religious group	1901[82]: 34 [89]: 62 [lower-alpha 8]		1911[80]: 27 [81]: 27 [lower-alpha 7]		1921[79]: 29 [lower-alpha 6]		1931[78]: 277 [lower-alpha 5]		1941[90][lower-alpha 4]		1951[91]: 12–21		1998[92]		2017[86][88]
	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%
Islam	7,951,155	76.25%	8,494,314	76.49%	8,975,288	75.49%	10,570,029	75.28%	13,022,160	75.1%	20,200,794	97.89%	71,574,830	97.22%	107,541,602	97.77%
Hinduism [lower-alpha 9]	1,944,363	18.65%	1,645,758	14.82%	1,797,141	15.12%	1,957,878	13.94%	2,373,466	13.69%	33,052	0.16%	116,410	0.16%	211,641	0.19%
Sikhism	483,999	4.64%	813,441	7.33%	863,091	7.26%	1,180,789	8.41%	1,520,112	8.77%	—	—	—	—	—	—
Christianity	42,371	0.41%	144,514	1.3%	247,030	2.08%	324,730	2.31%	395,311	2.28%	402,617	1.95%	1,699,843	2.31%	2,063,063	1.88%
Jainism	5,562	0.05%	5,977	0.05%	5,930	0.05%	6,921	0.05%	9,520	0.05%	—	—	—	—	—	—
Zoroastrianism	300	0.003%	377	0.003%	309	0.003%	413	0.003%	312	0.002%	195	0.001%	—	—	—	—
Judaism	9	0.0001%	36	0.0003%	16	0.0001%	6	0%	7	0%	—	—	—	—	—	—
Buddhism	6	0.0001%	168	0.002%	172	0.001%	32	0.0002%	87	0.001%	9	0%	—	—	—	—
Ahmadiyya	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	181,428	0.25%	158,021	0.14%
Others[lower-alpha 10]	0	0%	0	0%	8	0.0001%	0	0%	19,534	0.11%	35	0%	48,779	0.07%	15,328	0.01%
Total Population	10,427,765	100%	11,104,585	100%	11,888,985	100%	14,040,798	100%	17,340,103	100%	20,636,702	100%	73,621,290	100%	109,989,655	100%

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Divisions

Districts

List of universities

Fairs and festivals

The Islamic festivals are typically observed.^[110][111] Non-Islamic festivals include Lohri, Basant and Vaisakhi, which are usually celebrated as seasonal festivals.^[112] The Islamic festivals are set according to the lunar Islamic calendar (Hijri), and the date falls earlier by 10 to 13 days from year to year.^[113]

Some Islamic clerics and some politicians have attempted to ban the participation of non-Islamic festivals because of the religious basis,^[114] and they being declared haram (forbidden in Islam).^[115]