Sindh (original) (raw)

Sindh (Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Neighbouring regions are Balochistan to the west and north, Punjab in the north and Rajasthan (India) to the east. To the south are the Arabian Sea and the Rann of Kutch.

Sindh is the third largest province geographically. Its size is about 579 km north-south and 442 km (extreme) or 281 km (average) east-west, with an area of 140,915 km� The population was about 28 million in 1994, with about half urban. Its capital is Karachi. Other towns and cities include Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Tando Adam, Tando Allahyar, Nawabshah, Larkana, Shikarpur, Khairpur, Badin. Languages spoken include Sindhi, Landa and Rajasthani.

The province contains the southern part of the Indus River valley. In the east is the Thar Desert of India.

The main crops are cotton, rice, wheat and sugar cane, with rice the most important. Other crops include banana and mango.

History

The 600s saw the end of a period of sporadic Buddhist rule in the Sindh.

There is an apcrophyal story that in 1842 when General Charles Napier conquered Sindh for the British he sent back to the Governor General a one-word message, "Peccavi" - latin for "I have sinned". In actual fact this first appeared as a cartoon in Punch magazine.