Punjab ['p?n??b]&_160;(help·info) (
Punjabi ????? ?????,
Hindi ?????,
Urdu ?????), also
Panjab (
Persian ?????, meaning
"Land of the Five Rivers") (c.f.
ap-), is a region straddling the border between
India and
Pakistan. The "Five Rivers" are
Beas,
Ravi,
Sutlej,
Chenab and
Jhelum; all these are tributaries of the
Indus river. Punjab has a long history and rich cultural heritage. The people of the Punjab are called
Punjabis and speak a language named
Punjabi. The main
religions of the Punjab region are
Sikhism,
Hinduism,
Islam.
The area that is now known as the Greater Punjab comprises what were once vast territories of eastern Pakistan and northern western India. It comprised, in its original sense, regions extending from Swat/Kabul in the west to Delhi in the east i.e the area including parts of Afghanistan and the plains up to the Ganges [1]. It was a centre of the prehistoric Indus Valley civilization and after c. 1500 BCE the site of early Aryan settlements [2]. In ancient times, the area was inhabited by people called Vahikas or Arattas [3]. The Vahikas or Arattas were divided into many tribes or clans like the Gandharas, Prasthalas, Khasas, Vasatis, Trigartas, Pauravas, Malavas, Yaudheyas, Saindhavas, and Sauviras. There were also Iranian and transfrontier peoples such as the Kambojas and Pahlavas, as well as Ionians (Yavanas) and nomadic Scythians (Shakas).[4]
The region, populated by Indo-Aryan speaking peoples, has been ruled by many different empires and ethnic groups, including Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, ancient Macedonians, Persians, Arabs, Turks, Mughals, Afghans, Balochis, Sikhs and British. In 1947, it was partitioned between British India's successor states with the bulk (4 out of the 5 rivers) going to Pakistan and the remaining river was alloted to India.
The Pakistani Punjab now comprises the majority of the region together with the Hazara region of the North-West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir. The Indian Punjab has been further sub-divided into the modern Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. The Pakistani part of the region West Punjab covers an area of 205,344 square kilometers (79,284 square miles), whereas the Indian State of Punjab is 50,362 square kilometers (19,445 square miles). Besides the Indian Punjab, the region also includes the areas of Jammu region and Himachal and Haryana states of India that were created out of East Punjab in 1966. The populations of the region are similarly divided as 86,084,000 (2005) in West Punjab (Pakistan) and 24,289,296 (2000) in the present-day State of (East) Punjab (India) and a further 30 million in the rest of the region. Punjabi is spoken by (approximately) 65% of population in Pakistani Punjab (another 25% speak Punjabi variants) and 92.2% in Indian Punjab.[5] The capital city of undivided Punjab was Lahore, which now sits close to the partition line as the capital of West Punjab. Indian Punjab has as its capital the city of Chandigarh. Indian Punjab uses the Gurmukhi or Devanagari scripts, while Pakistani Punjab uses the Shahmukhi script.
