Rawalpindi, colloquially known as Pindi, is the third-largest city in the Pakistani province of Punjab and the fourth-most populous city in Pakistan. Located along the Soan River in north-western Punjab, Rawalpindi lies adjacent to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, and the two are jointly known as the "twin cities".
Rawalpindi is located on the Pothohar Plateau and is close to the ancient city of Taxila, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was founded in 1493 by a Gakhar chief and remained a small town until the 18th century. Following annexation of Punjab by the East India Company in 1849, Rawalpindi became the largest garrison town of the Northern Command of the British Indian Army with the establishment of the Rawalpindi Cantonment. It was granted municipal status in 1867. Following the independence of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, the city became home to the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army.
Rawalpindi also served as the secondary capital of Pakistan, under Ayub Khan,
Etymology
Previously known as Fatehpur Baori, the town fell into decay during the Mongol invasions of the 14th century. Afterwards, it came in hand of the Gakhars and a chief named Jhanda Khan restored it naming it Rawalpindi in 1493, literally meaning the "Village of Rawal" in Punjabi. Some accounts propose that a group of ascetics named Rawal arrived in this area and established the town.
History
Origins
The region around Rawalpindi has been inhabited for thousands of years. Rawalpindi falls within the ancient region of Gandhara, and thus the area contains many Buddhist ruins. In the north-west of Rawalpindi, traces have been found of at least 55 stupas, 28 Buddhist monasteries, 9 temples, and various artifacts in the Kharoshthi script.
thumb|left|Possible [[Kushano-Sasanian plate, excavated in Rawalpindi, fourth century CE. British Museum 124093.]]
thumb|upright|The "Fasting [[Buddha", on display at the British Museum in London, was discovered in Rawalpindi.]]
To the southeast are the ruins of the Mankiala stupa – a second-century stupa where, according to the Jataka tales, a previous incarnation of the Buddha leapt off a cliff in order to offer his corpse to seven hungry tiger cubs. The town of Taxila is thought to have been home to one of the early universities or education centres of South Asia.
Medieval
The first mention of Rawalpindi's earliest settlement dates from when Mahmud of Ghazni destroyed Rawalpindi and the town was restored by Gakhar chief Kai Gohar in the early 11th century. The town fell into decay again after Mongol invasions in the 14th century. Situated along an invasion route, the settlement did not prosper and remained deserted until 1493, when Jhanda Khan Gakhar re-established the ruined town, and named it Rawal.
Mughal period
thumb|The 16th century [[Rawat Fort, a fortified caravanserai.]]
During the Mughal era, Rawalpindi remained under the rule of the Gakhar clan, who in turn pledged allegiance to the Mughal Empire. The Attock Fort was constructed in 1581 after Akbar led a campaign against his brother Mirza Muhammad Hakim. in an era described as a "glorious period" in his career as Emperor.
Sikh rule
After the Mughal power declined, the town was captured in the mid-1760s from Muqarrab Khan Gakhar by the Sikhs under Sardar Gujjar Singh and his son Sahib Singh. The city began to prosper, although the population in 1770 is estimated to have been only about 300 families. For a time Rawalpindi became the refuge of Shah Shuja, the exiled king of Afghanistan, and of his brother Shah Zaman in the early 19th century.
The Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh allowed the son of Sardar Milkha Singh to continue as Governor of Rawalpindi, after he seized it in 1810. in order to flee from anti-Jewish laws instituted by the Qajar dynasty. In 1841, Diwan Kishan Kaur was appointed Sardar of Rawalpindi. The Sikh Empire then came to an end on 29 March 1849.
British period
thumb|Rawalpindi's [[Fatima Jinnah Women University is housed in a Victorian mansion.]]
Following Rawalpindi's capture by the British East India Company, 53rd Regiment of the company army took quarters in the newly captured city.
By 1921, Rawalpindi's cantonment had overshadowed the city – Rawalpindi was one of seven cities of Punjab in which over half the population lived in the cantonment district.
was launched as an ocean liner in 1925 by Harland and Wolff, the same company which built . The ship was converted into an armed vessel, and was sunk in October 1939. Scientists from Porton Down carried out poison gas tests on British Indian Army soldiers during the Rawalpindi experiments over the course of more than a decade beginning in the 1930s.
Partition
thumb|Andaroon Raja Bazaar streets
On 5 March 1947, members of Rawalpindi's Hindu and Sikh communities took a procession against the formation of a Muslim League ministry within the Government of Punjab. Policemen fired upon protestors, while Hindus and Sikhs fought against weaker Muslim counter-protestors. The area's first Partition riots erupted the next day on 6 March 1947, when the city's Muslims, angered by the actions of Hindus and Sikhs and encouraged by the Pir of Golra Sharif, raided nearby villages after they were unable to do so in the city on account of Rawalpindi's heavily armed Sikhs. Thousands of Sikhs and Hindus were killed in villages surrounding Rawalpindi, in large scale and widespread violence that came to be known as the Rawalpindi massacres.
At the dawn of Pakistan's independence in 1947 following the success of the Pakistan Movement, Rawalpindi was 43.79% Muslim, while Rawalpindi District as a whole was 80% Muslim. migrated en masse to the newly independent Dominion of India after anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh pogroms in western Punjab, while Muslim refugees from India settled in the city following anti-Muslim pogroms in eastern Punjab and northern India.
In 1951, the Rawalpindi conspiracy took place in which leftist army officers conspired to depose the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan. The military dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq hanged Pakistan's deposed Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in Rawalpindi in 1979.
In 1980, tens of thousands of Shia protestors led by Mufti Jaffar Hussain marched to Rawalpindi to protest a provision of Zia ul Haqs Islamization programme.
On 10 April 1988, Rawalpindi's Ojhri Camp, an ammunition depot for Afghan mujahideen fighting against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, exploded and killed many in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. At the time, the New York Times reported more than 93 were killed and another 1,100 wounded; many believe that the toll was much higher.
Riots erupted in Rawalpindi in 1992 as mobs attacked Hindu temples in retaliation for the destruction of the Babri Masjid in India.
Modern Rawalpindi is socially and economically intertwined with Islamabad, and the greater metropolitan area. The city is also home to numerous suburban housing developments that serve as bedroom-communities for workers in Islamabad. with hot and wet summers, a cooler and drier winter. Rawalpindi and its twin city Islamabad, during the year experiences an average of 91 thunderstorms, which is the highest frequency of any plain elevation city in the country. Strong windstorms are frequent in the summer during which wind gusts have been reported by Pakistan Meteorological Department to have reached . In such thunder/wind storms, which results in some damage of infrastructure. The weather is highly variable due to the proximity of the city to the foothills of Himalayas.
The average annual rainfall is , most of which falls in the summer monsoon season. However, westerly disturbances also bring quite significant rainfall in the winter. In summer, the record maximum temperature has soared to recorded in June 1954, while it has dropped to a minimum of several occasions, though the last of which was in January 1967.
Cityscape
<gallery mode="unpacked" widths="250">
File:Fawara Chowk Rawalpindi 2.jpg|Fawara Chowk in 1940.
File:Fawara Chowk Rawalpindi.jpg|Fawara Chowk in 2021.
File:College Road Rawalpindi.jpg|College Road is famous for electronic markets.
File:Haveli sujan Singh Rawalpindi.jpg|Haveli sujan Singh Rawalpindi
File:Poonch house Rawalpindi.jpg|Poonch House Rawalpindi
File:Faizabad Interchange, Rawalpindi.jpg|Faizabad Interchange
File:Lal haveli.jpg|Lal Haveli
File:Bahria Town Rawalpindi 2.jpg|Bahria Town is a private housing scheme in Rawalpindi
</gallery>
Social structures in Rawalpindi's historic core centre around neighbourhoods, each known as a Mohallah. Each neighbourhood is served by a nearby bazaar (market) and mosque, which in turn serves as a place where people can gather for trade and manufacturing. Each Mohallah has narrow gallies (streets), and the grouping of houses around short lanes and cul-de-sacs lends a sense of privacy and security to residents of each neighbourhood. Major intersections in the neighbourhood are each referred to as a chowk.
Rawalpindi is relatively a new city contrasted with Pakistan's millennia-old cities such as Lahore, Multan, and Peshawar. South of Rawalpindi's historic core, and across the Lai Nullah, are the wide lanes of the Rawalpindi Cantonment. With tree-lined avenues and historic architecture, the cantonment was the main European area developed during British colonial rule. British colonialists also built the Saddar Bazaar south of the historic core, which served as a retail center geared towards Europeans in the city. Beyond the cantonment are the large suburban housing developments that serve as bedroom communities for Islamabad's commuter population.
| 1855 |15913
| 1868 |28586
| 1881 |52975
| 1891 |72023
| 1901 |87688
| 1911 |86483
| 1921 |101142
| 1931 |119284
| 1941 |185000
| 1951 |237000
| 1961 |340000
| 1972 |615000
| 1981 |795000
| 1998 |1409768
| 2017 |2098231
| 2023 |3357612
Languages
The population of Rawalpindi was 3,357,612 in 2023 of which 54.22% of spoke Punjabi as a first language , 25.14% spoke Urdu, 13.08% spoke Pashto, 2.81% spoke Hindko, 2.07% spoke Kashmiri, 0.89% Seraiki, 0.32% Sindhi and an additional diverse 1.47% spoke other languages of Pakistan (mostly Balti and Kohistani).
Religion
<gallery mode="unpacked" widths="250">
File:Bagh Sardaran.JPG|An abandoned Hindu Temple at Bagh Sardaran
File:Perspective view from main gate - Christ Church, Rawalpindi.jpg|Christ Church, Rawalpindi
File:Moti Masjid, liaquat road Rawalpindi.png|Moti Masjid
File:Fatima masjid, bahria town, Rawalpindi.jpg|Fatima Masjid, Bahria Town
File:Markazi Jamia Masjid, Rawalpindi.jpg|Markazi Jamia Masjid
</gallery>
96.7% of Rawalpindi's population is Muslim, 3.1% is Christian, 0.2% belong to other religious groups. The city's Kohaati Bazaar is site of large Shia mourning-processions for Ashura. The neighbourhoods of Waris Shah Mohallah and Pir Harra Mohallah form the core of Muslim settlement in Rawalpindi's old city.
Prior to partition there was a sizable Sikh and Hindu community living in Rawalpindi. Today, the city is still home to a few hundred Hindu families. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the city's Hindus fled en masse to India after Partition, most Hindu temples in the old city remain standing, although in disrepair and often abandoned.
There are 3 main active Hindu temples in the city- Shri Krishna Mandir in Saddar Cantonment, Lal Kurti Temple in Lal Kurti area, and the Valmiki Swamiji Mandir in Gracy lines.The Shri Krishna Mandir is the only major functional Hindu temple in Rawalpindi. It was built in the Kabarri Bazaar in 1897. The Ram Leela Temple in Kanak Mandi, and the Kaanji Mal Ujagar Mal Ram Richpal Temple in the Kabarri Bazaar, are both currently used to house Kashmiri refugees. Mohan Temple in the Lunda Bazaar remains standing, but is abandoned and the building no longer used for any purpose. The city's "Shamshan Ghat" serves as the city's cremation grounds, and was partly renovated in 2012.
The city's Babu Mohallah neighbourhood was once home to a community of Jewish traders who had fled Mashhad, Persia in the 1830s.
{| class="wikitable collapsible sortable"
|+ Religious groups in Rawalpindi City (1881−2023)