Pakistan ( Pākistān pronunciation), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a South Asian country located in the mountainous region adjoining Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre (650 mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, the Republic of India in the east and the People's Republic of China in the far northeast.The Kashmir region is claimed by both India and Pakistan. Both countries and China separately administer parts of the region with the Indian and Pakistani-held areas defined by the Line of Control. Pakistan refers to Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir(POK), while India refers to Jammu and Kashmir as Indian Occupied Kashmir. Tajikistan also lies adjacent to Pakistan but is separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. In recent times, Pakistan has been called part of the New Middle East.

The region forming modern Pakistan was home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and then, successively, recipient of ancient Vedic, Persian, Turco-Mongol, Indo-Greek and Islamic cultures. The area has witnessed invasions and/or settlement by the Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Mongols and the British. It was a part of British India during the British Raj from 1858 to 1947, until the Indian independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. When the Pakistan Movement for a state for Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League resulted in the independence and creation of the state of Pakistan, that comprised the provinces of Sindh, North-West Frontier Province, West Punjab, Balochistan and East Bengal. With the adoption of its constitution in 1956, Pakistan became an Islamic republic. In 1971, a civil war in East Pakistan resulted in intervention from India and the subsequent independence of Bangladesh. Pakistan's history has been characterized by periods of economic growth, military rule and political instability.

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. The country is listed among the "Next Eleven" economies. Pakistan is a founding member of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Developing 8 Countries, G20 developing nations, Asia Cooperation Dialogue and the Economic Cooperation Organisation. It is also a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, World Trade Organisation, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, G33 developing countries, Group of 77 developing nations, major non-NATO ally of the United States and is a nuclear state.

Etymology

The name Pakistan, IPA: US 1 BE 2, means Land of (the) Pure in Urdu and Persian (Farsi). It was coined in 1934 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, In 1933 wrote and published his pamphlet Now or Never. The name represented the "thirty million Muslims of PAKISTAN, who live in the five Northern Units of British Raj — Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Kashmir, Sindh, and Balochistan."