Conservative Arab State of Pakistan — a seething cauldron in which local conflicts still flare up here and there. This is — a big problem and a big disappointment, because on the territory of this country there is an unimaginable number of amazing antiquities and relics of bygone times, which are sometimes difficult to get to without risk to life.
Interesting facts about Pakistan
- Pakistan ranks sixth in the world in terms of population and second in terms of the number of Muslims living in the country, second only to Indonesia in this indicator (interesting facts about Indonesia).
- In the late 1940s, during the conflict between India and Pakistan, the British monarch George VI was actually at war with himself, because it was he who was formally the head of both states.
- It is considered shameful in Pakistani families not to have a son, so parents who only have girls have the right to raise some of them as boys. Such children are given boyish names, have their hair cut short, are dressed in boys’ clothes and are given all the freedoms available to the male part of Muslim society. However, when girls grow up, they have to become women again and get married.
- Most soccer balls in the world (about 80%) are made in Pakistan, and until recently children were used for this.
- About 2-3 thousand years BC, the center of the Harappan civilization, one of the first that arose on Earth, was located on modern Pakistani lands. Buddhism began to spread in the same area.
- The Pakistani army is the sixth largest in the world. In addition, the state has a nuclear arsenal.
- In the summer of 2015, an abnormal heat wave hit this country. Daytime air temperatures reached 49 degrees, and more than 1.2 thousand people died from heatstroke and dehydration.
- There are 25 national parks in Pakistan, and the oldest of them, Lal Suhanra, appeared even before the independence of the state.
- Among Pakistanis, 63% of men and only 37% of women are literate.
- Cricket is the most popular sport in Pakistan, and the Pakistani national team in this sport has achieved the position of one of the strongest in the world.
- Throughout its history, Pakistanis have managed to win 10 Olympic medals, and 8 of them were won in men’s hockey on the grass.
- The white marble dome of the National Defense Society Mosque in Pakistan is considered the largest in the world.
- In this country, the “Towers of Silence”, built by the Zoroastrians, have been preserved – on their top there are lattice platforms where the bodies of the dead were placed so that their bones were cleansed of flesh by carrion birds. The skeletons were piled into a well in the center of the tower, where the remains continued to smolder and were eventually washed away by rainwater. The fact is that the Zoroastrians considered the corpses too “dirty” to be buried or burned.
- Flocks of trained pigeons travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan, delivering drugs from one country to another (interesting facts about Afghanistan).
- Pakistan is the only state in the world that has not recognized Armenia, although the Armenian authorities recognize the independence of Pakistan (interesting facts about Armenia).
- This country has one of the largest fortresses in the world – the length of the walls of Ranikot is almost 30 kilometers. Despite the impressive size of the building, scientists still have not been able to figure out why the ancient builders needed to build a fortress in this place.
- Pakistani schoolchildren are forced to read the Koran for eight hours for being late for class even by a few minutes.