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Location
Located in South
Asia, Pakistan shares an eastern border with India and a northeastern
border with China. Iran makes up the country’s southwest border,
and Afghanistan runs along its western and northern edge. The Arabian
Sea is Pakistan’s southern boundary with 1,064 km of coastline.
The country has a total area of 803,940 sq. km with a land area
of 796,095 Sq. km and is nearly four times the size of the United
Kingdom. From Gwadar Bay in it’s southeastern corner, the country
extends more than 1,800 km to the Khunjerab Pass on China’s border.
Major
industries
Textiles, food
processing, beverages, construction materials, clothing, paper products,
shrimp, cotton, wheat, rice, sugarcane, fruits, vegetables, milk,
beef, mutton, eggs.
Major trading partners
EU, US, Hong
Kong, Japan, China.
Environment
Pakistan's neighbours
are an eclectic and ornery bunch: Iran to the southwest; Afghanistan
to the west and north; China to the northeast; and India stretching
down its eastern side. The southern coast abuts the Arabian Sea.
The country is composed of towering peaks in the north (including
the second-highest mountain in the world, 8611m/28,245 ft K2), dry
and scrubby mountains in the west, an inhospitable plateau in the
southwest, barren deserts in the southeast and alluvial plains everywhere
else. These plains, constituting about a third of the country, are
Pakistan's 'heart', where most of its people live and most of its
food is grown. Coursing through all this tumult is the Indus River,
which falls from Tibet then travels 2500 km (1550 mi) south before
emptying through an immense delta into the Arabian Sea. Natural
fauna in Pakistan's lowlands is patchy - mostly scattered clumps
of grass and stunted woodlands. However, as the landscape rises,
there are quite large coniferous forests and carpeted slopes of
multicoloured flowers in the northern mountains. Fauna includes
bear, snow leopard, deer and jackal. Pakistan's 800 km (500 mi)
of coastline teems with shark, shellfish and sea turtle, while the
Indus delta is home to the marsh crocodile.
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