Pakistan

Pakistan is officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a state in South Asia. It is the fifth most populous country in the world with a population of over 225.2 million and the second largest Muslim population in the world. Pakistan ranks 33rd in area, with 881,913 square kilometers (340,509 sq mi). It has a 1,046-kilometer (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is narrowly separated from Tajikistan by the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan in the north, and also has a maritime border with Oman.

Pakistan is home to several ancient cultures, including the 8500-year-old Neolithic settlement of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, and the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization, the most extensive of the Old World civilizations. The region that makes up the modern state of Pakistan was the kingdom of many empires and dynasties, including the Achaemenids; briefly Alexander the Great; Seleucids, Mauryas, Kushans, Guptas; The Umayyad Caliphate in its southern regions, the Hindu Shahs, the Ghaznavids, the Sultanate of Delhi, the Mughals, the Durrani, the Sikh Empire, the rule of the British East India Company and, more recently, the British Indian Empire from 1858 to 1947.

Spurred by the Pakistani movement seeking a homeland for the Muslims of British India and the 1946 election victories of the All India Muslim League, Pakistan gained independence in 1947 following the partition of the British Indian Empire, which granted it a separate statehood. These are regions with a Muslim majority, which was accompanied by unprecedented mass migration and loss of life. Originally part of the British Commonwealth, Pakistan formally drafted its constitution in 1956 and became a proclaimed Islamic republic. In 1971, the East Pakistan exclave seceded as the new country of Bangladesh after a nine-month civil war. For the next four decades, Pakistan was ruled by governments whose descriptions, although complex, tended to alternate between civilian and military, democratic and authoritarian, relatively secular and Islamist. Pakistan elected a civilian government in 2008 and adopted a parliamentary system with periodic elections in 2010.

Pakistan is a middle power with the sixth largest standing military force in the world. This state, proclaimed a nuclear weapon, is among the developing countries and countries with leading economies, with a large and rapidly growing middle class. Pakistan's political history since independence has been characterized by periods of significant economic and military growth, as well as periods of political and economic instability. It is a country of diverse ethnic and linguistic diversity, with an equally diverse geographic location and wildlife. However, the country continues to face challenges including poverty, illiteracy, corruption and terrorism. Pakistan is a member of the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Commonwealth of Nations, the South Asia Regional Cooperation Association, the Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition and is designated as a major non-NATO country. US ally.