Geography

Pakistan stretches from the Arabian Sea to the high mountains of Central Asia, and covers an area of 803,944 km2. It lies approximately between 24° and 37° north latitude, and between 61° and 78° east longitude.

Neighbours

• Iran to the west
• Afghanistan to the north
• China to the northeast
• India to the east and southeast along a 2,000 km, partially contested border.

There is a 1,000 km long coastline along the Arabian Sea.The great mountain ranges of the Himalayas, the Karakorams and the Hindukush form Pakistan’s northern highlands of North West Frontier Province and the Northern Area. Punjab province is a flat, alluvial plain with five major rivers dominating the upper region eventually joining the Indus River flowing south to the Arabian Sea. Sindh is bounded on the east by the Thar Desert and the Rann of Kutch and on the west by the Kirthar range and the Balochistan Plateau is an arid tableland, encircled by dry mountains.

Climate

• The climate is continental and is characterized by extreme variations of temperature.
• Winter (January) temperatures range from 68°F along the coast to 4°F in the high mountains (above 460 m).
• Summer (July) temperatures range from 95°F in the southeastern deserts to 32°F in the high mountains.
• The southwest monsoon (July-October) provides rainfall of about 40 inches or more in the mountainous northern areas to about 6-8 inches on the coast. Rainfall varies from year to year, and successive periods of flooding and drought are not uncommon.
  

Physiographic division

Pakistan can be divided physiographically into four regions:

• the great highlands
• the Balochistan Plateau,
• the Indus Plain
• the desert areas.

The Himalayan and the trans-Himalayan mountain ranges, rising to an average elevation of more than 6,000 m and including some of the world’s highest peaks, such as K2 (8,616m) and Nanga Parbat (8,125m), make up the great highlands which occupy the northern most portion of the country. The Balochistan Plateau, a broken highland region about 300 m in elevation with many ridges crossing it from northeast to southwest, occupies the western and southwestern sectors of the country. The Indus Plain, the most prosperous agricultural region of Pakistan, covers an area of 520,000 km2 in the east and extends to 1,100 km from northern Pakistan southward to the Arabian Sea. In the southeast are the desert areas.