Historical Description[]
Inhabited since ancient times under various names, Karachi lies on the Arabian Sea west of the Indus River Delta. It remained a minor fishing village until local Sindhi rulers established a trading post and later a fort there in the eighteenth century. The HMS Wellesley conquered the town for the British East India Company in 1839, and it was annexed into the British Raj four years later as part of the state of Sindh. Karachi soon became a key part of the ‘Great Game’ which pitted Britain against Russia for control of Central Asia.
A railroad connecting the burgeoning port to the Indian interior was completed in 1878, spurring it to become the largest exporter of grain in the British Empire. Karachi was the first capital of an independent Pakistan from 1947-1959, as well as the home of the country’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The multicultural, cosmopolitan city flourished in the mid-twentieth century but suffered a great deal of sectarian violence around the turn of the millennium. Nevertheless, it is still the economic heart of Pakistan and one of the largest urban centers in the world.