Pakistan's capital is Islamabad, a planned city built in the 1960s on the northern edge of the Pothohar Plateau, at the foot of the Margalla Hills and just north of Rawalpindi. The city itself is home to just over 1.1 million people, and the wider Islamabad Capital Territory counted 2,363,863 at the 2023 census. It replaced Karachi as the national capital, and its defining feature is its plan: a grid of lettered sectors laid out by the Greek planner Constantinos Doxiadis, with the white Faisal Mosque set against the green wall of the hills. Six places tell the story of how the capital was made and what it holds.
First, the background. When Pakistan became independent in 1947, the port city of Karachi served as its provisional capital. In 1958 a commission was set up to find a site near Rawalpindi, weighing location, climate, logistics and defence, and in 1959 it recommended the land northeast of Rawalpindi. Karachi was at the far southern end of the country, and planners also wanted the government away from the pressure of Karachi's business interests. The new site was close to army headquarters in Rawalpindi and to the Pakistani-administered parts of the disputed Kashmir region. Rawalpindi acted as the interim capital in the early 1960s, and the government moved into Islamabad once essential construction was finished in 1966.
Faisal Mosque, Pakistan's National Mosque
At the northern end of Faisal Avenue, where the city meets the Margalla Hills, stands the national mosque. The idea dates from 1966, when King Faisal of Saudi Arabia backed the Pakistani government's plan for a national mosque during a visit. In 1969 an international competition drew 43 proposals from architects in 17 countries, and the Turkish architect Vedat Dalokay won with a design that has no dome at all. Instead, eight sloping concrete shells form a structure inspired by a Bedouin tent, with four 90-metre minarets at the corners.
Construction began in 1976, funded by the Saudi government; King Faisal had been assassinated in 1975, and both the mosque and the avenue leading to it took his name. King Khalid laid the foundation stone in October 1976. The building was completed in 1986 and the first prayers were held on 18 June 1988. The prayer hall holds about 10,000 worshippers, and the whole complex covers some 130,000 square metres. From 1986 until 1993 it was the largest mosque in the world; it is now ranked sixth by capacity. Some conservative critics objected to its lack of a traditional dome, but it is now the city's emblem, and the International Islamic University was housed in its grounds until moving to a new campus in 2000.
Constitution Avenue and Parliament House
Doxiadis gave the government its own zone, and its spine is Constitution Avenue, known in Urdu as Shahrah-e-Dastoor. The avenue runs north to south through the guarded Red Zone, and it was deliberately designed to line up the pillars of the state on one road: the Aiwan-e-Sadr, which is the president's palace, the Prime Minister's Office, the Supreme Court and Parliament House. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Election Commission, the Federal Board of Revenue and the National Library are along it too, and the road is a regular site for political protests.
Pakistan's legislature was a latecomer to the avenue. The Constituent Assembly first met on 10 August 1947 in the Sindh Assembly Building in Karachi. After the 1962 constitution, sessions were held in Dhaka and at Ayub Hall in Rawalpindi, and from 1972 the National Assembly met in the State Bank auditorium in Islamabad, where the 1973 constitution was adopted. The Senate and National Assembly moved into the present Parliament House when it was inaugurated on 28 May 1986. Today the two houses have 336 members of the National Assembly and 96 senators. The presidential palace took even longer: construction started in 1970 and took eleven years, and the first president to live there was Ghulam Ishaq Khan, in 1988. For how these institutions divide power, see our guide to the government of Pakistan.
The Pakistan Monument on the Shakarparian Hills
On the western part of the Shakarparian Hills stands the Pakistan Monument, the national monument and heritage museum. The government first proposed a national monument in 2002, and a competition organised through the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners drew 21 entries. The design by the architect Arif Masoud was approved on 10 July 2003, the foundation stone was laid on 25 May 2004, and President Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the monument on 23 March 2007.
Its shape is borrowed from the muqarnas, the honeycomb vaulting of Mughal architecture. Four large petals represent the Punjabi, Baloch, Sindhi and Pashtun cultures, and three smaller ones represent other groups, including those of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, all meeting over a central platform. The 2.8-hectare site sits high enough to be seen across the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area, and it includes a heritage museum.
Daman-e-Koh and the View of the Doxiadis Grid
The best way to understand Islamabad's plan is from above, and the viewpoint for that is Daman-e-Koh, a hilltop garden in the Margalla Hills whose name comes from Persian words meaning "foothills". It sits about 2,400 feet above sea level, some 500 feet above the city, on the winding road to the higher lookout at Pir Sohawa.
What you see is the plan Doxiadis drew in 1960: a grid, triangular in overall shape with its apex towards the hills, with sectors lettered from A to I. The city is divided into zones for administration, the diplomatic enclave, commerce, education, industry, housing and green space. Residential sectors are identified by a letter and a number, each covering roughly 2 by 2 kilometres and split into four numbered sub-sectors, so an address such as F-7 or G-6 tells a local exactly where to go. Pakistani legislators saw the new capital as their answer to Chandigarh, the modernist city in India, and internationally known architects such as Edward Durell Stone and Gio Ponti have been associated with its development.
Behind the viewpoint lies Margalla Hills National Park, established in 1980 and covering 17,386 hectares. The hills are the westernmost foothills of the Himalayas, and the park records around 600 plant species, 402 bird varieties and 38 mammals, including leopards that sometimes come down from the Murree hills in winter. The chart shows how quickly the ground rises behind the city.
Saidpur, the Mughal-Era Village Inside the Capital
Islamabad is new, but the land was not empty. In a ravine below Daman-e-Koh sits Saidpur, one of the oldest still-inhabited villages in the region. It was founded in 1530 as Fatehpur Baoli and was later given by the Mughal emperor Akbar to Said Khan Gakhar, a reward for his family's service against Sher Shah Suri, which is how it got its current name. Said Khan's daughter married Akbar's son Saleem, the future emperor Jahangir, and in his memoirs Jahangir describes a stay at a village "beyond Rawalpindi" that is believed to be Saidpur.
The village also became a Hindu pilgrimage site after the commander Raja Man Singh visited in 1580. Ponds were named after figures from the Ramayana, and a small 16th-century temple, the Ram Kund, survives. In the 20th century a gurdwara was built next to the temple, and a mosque, a church and the Sufi shrine of Zinda Pir stood nearby; until Partition in 1947, Sikh and Hindu worship went on side by side. In 2006 the Capital Development Authority spent 400 million rupees restoring Saidpur as an arts and crafts village, keeping the temple, gurdwara, old school and tomb. Between 12,000 and 15,000 people were estimated to live there in 2015. Much older still, the Pothohar Plateau around the city has yielded Stone Age tools from terraces of the Soan River and the remains of a Buddhist stupa at Ban Faqiran, dated to the 2nd to 4th centuries CE.
Rawal Lake and the Kurang River
A capital needs water, and Islamabad's comes partly from Rawal Lake, an artificial reservoir formed by damming the Kurang River and streams running off the Margalla Hills. The British had considered damming the river to supply Rawalpindi early in the 20th century; Pakistan commissioned a feasibility study in 1958, and President Ayub Khan inaugurated the dam in 1962, just as the new capital was being built beside it. The lake covers about 8.8 square kilometres, and roughly 70 per cent of its catchment lies in the Murree hills. Along with the nearby Simli and Khanpur dams, it helps moderate the city's climate: Islamabad has hot summers, with June highs above 38 °C, and a monsoon that brought a record 620 millimetres of rain in ten hours on 23 July 2001.
The reservoir is also under strain. It serves both Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the old Gakhar city next door, with which the capital now forms a single conurbation known as the Twin Cities, and it has suffered from sewage contamination in recent years. If you plan to see the lake, the hills and the Faisal Mosque in one trip, the seasons matter, and our guide to the best time to visit Pakistan covers them; to see how the Twin Cities rank against Karachi and Lahore, turn to our list of the largest cities in Pakistan.
Quick Facts About Islamabad
- Country: Pakistan
- Continent: Asia (South Asia)
- Country population: approximately 259.3 million
- Capital city status: Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan, the seat of national government, and the location of foreign embassies, parliament, and the head of state's official residence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the capital of Pakistan?
The capital of Pakistan is Islamabad. Islamabad is the seat of national government, hosts most foreign embassies and consulates, and is typically where the head of state and parliament are located.
What continent is Islamabad in?
Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, is located in Asia, in the South Asia region. As Pakistan's capital, Islamabad serves as the country's primary connection to the broader Asian political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Islamabad the capital of Pakistan?
Islamabad was chosen as the capital of Pakistan for reasons that typically combine geography, history, and politics. Capital city selections often reflect a desire for centrality (being accessible from across the country), historical importance (being a longstanding seat of government or culture), or neutrality (being acceptable to multiple regions or ethnic groups within the country). The specific reasons for Islamabad's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Islamabad known for?
As the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad is best known for housing the country's central government institutions — parliament, presidential or royal residences, supreme court, and key ministries. It is also typically a major cultural and economic center within Pakistan, hosting national museums, embassies, and signature monuments. The introduction and history sections above provide detailed coverage of the city's specific notable institutions and landmarks.
Related Pages
- Pakistan Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Pakistan — meaning, history, and design of Pakistan's national flag