The Mianwali District () is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

located in the Sargodha Division of the Punjab province of

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. Mianwali District remained part of Rawalpindi Division until 1963, when Mianwali District became part of Sargodha Division. According to

2023 Pakistani census The 2023 Census of Pakistan was the detailed enumeration of the Pakistani population and the seventh national census in the country. It was conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. It was also the first ever digital census to be held in ...

, population of Mianwali District is 1.79 million. It has borders with the Talagang, Attock, Kohat, Karak,

Lakki Marwat Lakki Marwat or Lakki (Urdu and ) is the headquarters of Lakki Marwat District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Lakki Marwat has become List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, one of the fastest growing cities in Khyber P ...

, Dera Ismail Khan, Bhakkar, and

Khushab Khushab (Punjabi language, punjabi: خُوشاب) is a city as well as a district of Sargodha Division, located in the Punjab (Pakistan), Punjab province of Pakistan. The word ''Khushab'' means "sweet water." Khushab city also serves as the headq ...

districts.

History

The history of the district is tied to the Miana family which came from Baghdad and settled in Mianwali. The name Mianwali is derived from a sufi saint Mian Ali's name. Mian Ali Mianwali was a known settlement and an agricultural region with forests during the

Indus Valley Civilization The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE ...

(c. 3300 – c.1300 BCE). Mianwali later became part of the Vedic civilization. After the conquest of Punjab, Arabs who had established themselves in

Multan Multan is the List of cities in Punjab, Pakistan by population, fifth-most populous city in the Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab province of Pakistan. Located along the eastern bank of the Chenab River, it is the List of cities in Pakistan by populatio ...

were in control of Mianwali and surrounding areas of Punjab. In 997 CE, Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi took over the Ghaznavid empire established by his father, Sultan Sebuktegin. In 1005 CE, he conquered the Hindu Shahis and followed it by the conquests of the Punjab region. The

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate or the Sultanate of Delhi was a Medieval India, late medieval empire primarily based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for more than three centuries.

and later Mughal empire ruled the region. The population of the Punjab region became majority Muslim, following the conquests by various Muslim dynasties from Central Asia. The real historical representation of the Mianwali region is older than 900 AD but the true accuracy is traced to the arrival of Qutb Shah in 1090 AD who in later years of his conquest allowed his sons to settle and further rule the region. Their lineage still exists to date in the Mianwali district as well as in

and are known as Awan tribe. Historically, all major rulers of

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

governed this area in their turn. Mughal emperor Babur mentioned Isakhel in the ''

Baburnama The ''Bāburnāma'' (; ) is the memoirs of Babur, Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur. It is written in the Chagatai language, known to Babur as ''Türki'' "Turkic ...

'' when describing his campaigns against the Malik Awans and Niazi Pakhtuns during his invasion of Punjab in the 1520s. Prior to the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1738, there is little to relate concerning the history of the northern part of the district. The upper half of the district was ruled by the Gakhars, who became feudatories of the

Mughal empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

, of which the district continued to form a part until the invasion of Nadir Shah. In 1738, a portion of his army entered Chashma. By its atrocities so cowed the Bannuchis and Marwats that a heavy tribute was raised from them. Another portion of the army crossed the Darra Pezu and worked its way down to Dera Ismail Khan. Contingents raised from the neighborhoods of Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan marched under Nadir Shah's banner to the sack of Delhi. In 1739, the area west of the Indus was surrendered by the emperor of Delhi to Nadir Shah and passed after his death to Ahmad Shah Abdali. In 1748, a Durrani army under one of Ahmad Shah's generals crossed the Indus at Kalabagh, and drove out the Ghakkars, who still ruled in the cis-Indus tracts of the district, owing nominal allegiance to the emperor at Delhi. Their stronghold, Muazzam Nagar, was razed to the ground, and with their expulsion was swept away the last vestige of the authority of the Mughal emperor in these parts. During the British Raj, the Mianwali district was also among the states of the British Punjab where regional offices of

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

were in position until winter of 1883 when the regional office of

in Mianwali was shut down due to civil unrest and hostile conditions. The British had made the town of Mianwali as tehsil headquarters of Bannu District then part of Dera Ismail Khan Division of Punjab province. The population of Mianwali, according to the 1901 census of India, was 3,591. In November 1901, the North-West Frontier Province was carved out of Punjab and the tehsils of Mianwali and Isa Khel, and were separated from Bannu District (Bannu became part of NWFP). A new district was made with the headquarters in Mianwali city and placed in Punjab. The district became a part of Rawalpindi Division. There were four tehsils: Mianwali, Isa Khel, Bhakkar, and Layyah. Layyah was included in the Muzaffargarh District in 1909. The district became a part of Sargodha Division in 1963. Bhakkar Tehsil was separated from Mianwali and was made a separate district inside Sargodha Division w.e.f. 01-07-1982. On January 14, 2023, CM Pervaiz Elahi announced that Mianwali and Bhakkar districts upgraded to divisional status, carved from the Sargodha Division. Newly formed Talagang district from the northern Rawalpindi Division would also be part of the division.

Geography

Mianwali district covers an area of . The area in the north is a continuation of the

Pothohar Plateau The Pothohar Plateau (, : ''Pо̄ṭhoā̀r Paṭhār''; , ''Satāh Murtafā Pо̄ṭhohār''), also spelled Pothwar, is a plateau in the Sindh Sagar Doab, Sind Sagar Doab of northern Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab, Pakistan, located between the Indus ...

and the Kohistan-e-Namak. Southern side of the district is a part of Thal desert.

Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayas, Himalayan river of South Asia, South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northw ...

flows through the district.

Climate

Mianwali district The Mianwali District () is a Districts of Pakistan, district located in the Sargodha Division of the Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab province of Pakistan. Mianwali District remained part of Rawalpindi Division until 1963, when Mianwali District beca ...

has an extreme climate with a long hot summer season and dry cold winters. Summer lasts from May to September and winter lasts from November till February. June is the hottest month with average temperature of 42 °C (highest recorded temperature was 52 °C); in winter, the average temperature can be as low as 3 to 4 °C, particularly in December and January. The average rainfall in the district is about 385 mm.

Administration

The municipal committee was founded in December 1993 and has remained operational since then. The district is administratively divided into three

tehsil A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a Zila (country subdivision), district including the designated populated place that ser ...

s 7 Municipal Committees and 51 union councils:

Urban areas

Demographics

Language

At the time of the 2023 census, 73.69% of the population spoke

Saraiki language Saraiki ( ', ; also spelt Siraiki, or Seraiki) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group. "The existence of Lahnda as a separate language has long been recognised under various names such as Jatki, Multani, Hindki or Hindko and Western Pan ...

, 11.35%

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

, 7.79% Punjabi, 3.5%

Hindko Hindko (, , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Pun ...

and 3.15%

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

as their first language.

Population

As of the 2023 census, Mianwali district has 296,339 households and a population of 1,798,268. The district has a sex ratio of 104.32 males to 100 females and a literacy rate of 62.87%: 77.58% for males and 47.63% for females. 454,517 (25.31% of the surveyed population) are under 10 years of age. 363,453 (20.21%) live in urban areas.

Religion

As per the 2023 census,

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

made up almost the entire population with 99.32%, although there is a small mainly urban minority of Christians numbering 11,951.

People

* Mian Sultan Zikria - Famous sufi saint from the Mianwali district * Amjad Khan Niazi - Retired Chief of Naval Staff of Pakistan Navy. * Nawab Malik Amir Mohammad Khan - Chief of the Awan tribe, Nawab of Kalabagh, Former Governor of the West Pakistan. * Tilok Chand Mehroom – Urdu poet * Jagannath Azad – Urdu-Speaking poet of Hindu academic. * Imran Khan Niazi – Former captain of the Pakistan cricket team, twice elected to the

National Assembly of Pakistan The National Assembly of Pakistan, also referred to as ''Aiwān-ē-Zairīñ'', is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Pakistan, with the upper house being the Senate of Pakistan, Senate. As of 2023, the National Assem ...

from Mianwali and served as the 22nd Prime minister of Pakistan . * Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi – Folk singer * Abdul Sattar Khan Niazi – religious and political leader of

* Misbah-ul-Haq – Pakistani cricketer * Sher Afgan Niazi – Former Minister of Law and Member of Parliament * Sardar Khan Niazi – Chief Editor and publisher of Daily Pakistan, Daily The Patriot, Daily Pak Watan, Daily Action, Daily Nawa-e-Nawabshah, Monthly Naya Rukh, and also Chairman of the Pakistan Group of Publications. * Shadab Khan – Pakistani cricketer. * Aqeela Asifi – Afghan refugee and teacher who has educated thousands of other Afghan refugee children in Mianwali * Lt. Gen. Amir Abdullah Niazi - Commandent Army Eastern Command III Corps in

East Pakistan East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1955 and 1971, restructured and renamed from the province of East Bengal and covering the territory of the modern country of Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, wit ...

*Lt. Gen. Muhammad Aslam Shah- Corps Commander Pakistan Army *Lt. Gen. Zarar Azim- Corps Commander Pakistan Army * Maj. Gen. Sanaullah Khan Niazi - Two-star Major-General rank officer of Pakistan military, GOC Malakand, who embraced martyrdom in Pakistan's War on terrorism. * Maj. Gen. Javed Sultan Khan- Two star Major-General rank officer of Pakistan military, GOC Kohat, who embraced martyrdom in Pakistan's War on terrorism. * Maj. Gen. Hidayatullah Khan Niazi- Two-star Major-General rank officer of Pakistan military * Maj. Gen. Inayatullah Khan Niazi- Two-star Major-General rank officer of Pakistan military * Maj. Gen. Rafiullah Khan Niazi- Two star Major-General rank officer of Pakistan military * Air Vice Marshal Abdul Razzaq Anjum- Two-star Air Vice Marshal of Pakistan Air Force * Sher Shah Awan , commander of an ambushed platoon in the

Burma Campaign The Burma campaign was a series of battles fought in the British colony of British rule in Burma, Burma as part of the South-East Asian theatre of World War II. It primarily involved forces of the Allies of World War II, Allies (mainly from ...

where despite his shattered leg he crawled at the enemy to continue to fight * Ayla Malik- Politician

Places of interest

* Mari Indus railway station * Kalabagh Dam * Jinnah Barrage * Chashma Barrage * Namal Lake * Kundian Railway Station * Daud Khel Railway Station * Mari Indus Railway Station

Notes

References

External links

History of Niazi tribe

Niazi chiefs in the service of Mughals

Niazi uprising against the Sikhs (1829-30)

History of Kalabagh
* * {{Coord, 32, 00, N, 71, 30, E, region:PK_type:adm3rd_source:GNS-enwiki, display=title Districts of Punjab, Pakistan