Kohat Division is one of seven divisions in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ...

province. It consists of five

districts 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 counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

: Hangu, Karak,

Kohat Kohat ( ps, کوهاټ; ur, ) is a city that serves as the capital of the Kohat District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is regarded as a centre of the Bangash tribe of Pashtuns, who have lived in the region since the late 15th century ...

, Kurram, and Orakzai. According to the 2017 Pakistani Census, the division had a population of 3,211,458, making it the third-least populous division in the province, and it spans of area, and this makes it the fourth-largest division by area in the province.

is the division's largest city and namesake, with over 220,000 inhabitants. The division borders Bannu Division to the south and west,

Peshawar Division Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

to the north and east, the province of

Punjab, Pakistan Punjab (; , ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in central-eastern region of the country, Punjab is the second-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the largest province by population. It shares land borders with the ...

to its east, and the country of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

to its northwest.

Districts

Districts are the administrative unit one level below divisions in the administrative hierarchy of Pakistan. Kohat Division consists of the following five

History

In 1941, the area which today covers the division (excluding Orakzai and Kurram) was known as Kohat District. Kohat District was one of five trans-Indus districts in the North-West Frontier Province of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. It was split into the Tehsils of Hangu, Kohat, and Teri. Here is a description of the area given by the Imperial Gazetteer of India. Kurram, on the other hand, was an agency in the province bordering Kohat District. It is also described in the Gazetteer. At that time, the area that would later become Orakzai District was an unadministered patch of land known as Tīrāh. Its description is below. At the time of the

One Unit The One Unit Scheme ( ur, ; bn, এক ইউনিট ব্যবস্থা) was a geopolitical programme launched by the Government of Pakistan led by Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra on 22 November 1954 and passed on 30 September 1955 ...

policy, Kohat District became a part of the then-much-larger

. When the policy ended, though, Kohat District stayed in the division. The area received full-fledged division status between the Pakistani censuses of 1981 and 1998, and during the same time period, Hangu Tehsil and Karak Tehsil (formerly Teri Tehsil) were also upgraded, to district status (becoming Hangu District and Lakki Marwat District). In August 2000, Kohat Division was abolished along with every other division in the country, but was reinstated (with all the other divisions of Pakistan) eight years later after the elections of 2008. In 2018, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan was passed by the

Parliament of Pakistan The Parliament of Pakistan ( ur, , , "Pakistan Advisory Council" or "Pakistan Consultative Assembly") is the federal and supreme legislative body of Pakistan. It is a bicameral federal legislature that consists of the Senate as the upper ...

and the

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is located in Peshawar, the provincial capital. It was established under Article 106 of ...

. This entirely and fully merged the seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the six Frontier Regions with the province of

. With this merger, Kohat Division gained the agencies of Kurram and Orakzai, which became

, and the Frontier Region Kohat (which was fully merged into Kohat District as Darra Adam Khel Subdivision).

Geography

Kohat Division has a total area of . Kurram and Karak Districts are the two largest districts in the division, having areas of and respectively. Together they make up about 55% of the area of the division. Kohat District, despite being the most populous, comes in as the third-largest district in the province with an area of . The two smaller districts of the division, Hangu (with an area of only ) and Orakzai (with an area of ) make up the interior of the division, wedged between the three larger districts to their west and east. The important Kurram River (a major tributary of the

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

) begins in this division, in Kurram District.

Surrounding areas

To Kohat Division's northeast, you will find

, to the division's southwest, Bannu Division can be found. To the southeast of Kohat Division, the divisions of Sargodha and

Rawalpindi Rawalpindi ( or ; Urdu, ) is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad, and third largest in Punjab after Lahore and Faisalabad. Rawalpindi is next to Pakistan ...

in the province of Punjab can be found, and Kohat Division borders the country of

to its northwest.

Demographics

As of the

2017 Census of Pakistan The 2017 Census of Pakistan was a detailed enumeration of the Pakistani population which began on 15 March 2017 and ended on 25 May 2017. It was the first census taken in the country in the 21st century, nineteen years after the previous one in ...

, the division had a population of 3,211,458, out of which there were 1,591,494

male Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to ...

s, 1,619,908

female Female ( symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Fema ...

s, and 57 people who identified as

Transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

; this made the

sex ratio The sex ratio (or gender ratio) is usually defined as the ratio of males to females in a population. As explained by Fisher's principle, for evolutionary reasons this is typically about 1:1 in species which reproduce sexually. Many species dev ...

of the division 982 males for every 1,000 females, and makes it very unique among the divisions of Pakistan and across all of South Asia, as in most of Pakistan and South Asia, males are the majority. The division had 355,594 households, making the average household size of the division 9.03, one of the highest in Pakistan; 463,732 people in the division lived in an urban area, but the majority (2,747,726) lived in a rural area, making the urbanization rate of the division a 14.43%, far below the national average Geographically, it is the Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa#Divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, fourth-largest division in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and has the fifth-largest (or third-smallest) population. It has a population density of , making it the second-least densely populated division in the province. Kohat Division had nine urbanized municipalities in 2017. Their names were (ordered by population)

, Karak, Hangu, Sadda, Tall, Lachi, Doaba,

Shakardara Shakaradara is a village in Kohat district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is renowned for its oil and gas reservoirs. The Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) has recently, successfully explored four oil fields in the Shakardara wit ...

, and

Parachinar Parachinar ( ps, پاړه چنار; ur, ) is a small Pashtun ( Turi and Bangash tribe) town which is the capital of Kurram District in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Parachinar is situated on a neck of Pakistani territory wes ...

, the division's namesake and largest city, is situated in Kohat District and has over 200,000 inhabitants. Kohat is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's fourth-largest city and is a fast-growing city whose population grew at a rate of more than 3% every year between 1998 and 2017. Karak, Kohat Division's third-largest city, is the largest city and namesake of

Karak District Karak District ( ps, کرک ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in Kohat Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It is situated to the south of Kohat District and on the north side of Bannu and Lakki Marwat districts on the main ...

. Having a population just over 50,000, it is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's 24th largest city. Hangu, Kohat Division's second-largest city, is the largest city and namesake of Hangu District. Having a population just under 50,000, it is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's 27th largest city. In 1998, Hangu was larger than Karak, but due to Karak's fast growth, has been overtaken. Sadda, in

Kurram District Kurram District ( ps, کرم ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in Kohat Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan.The name Kurram comes from the river Kuramá ( ps, کورمه) in Pashto which itself derives from the Sanskrit name K ...

, is the fourth-largest city in Kohat Division, with about 35,000 inhabitants. It was the second-largest city in the now-defunct Federally Administered Tribal Areas and is the 40th largest city in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is a fast-growing city (with a population growth rate of 3.75% every year between 1998 and 2017, which means its population more than doubled during that period) and is more than six times larger than

, Kurram District's administrative district capital.

Orakzai District Orakzai District ( ps, اورکزو ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in Kohat Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Until 2018, it was an agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas. With the merger of FATA with Khyber Pakh ...

is the only district in the division without a single urbanized area. It is entirely rural. The division has one cantonment, the Kohat Cantonment, adjacent to the city of Kohat which had a population of 36,935, making up the division's entire military population. This made 1.15% of the entire population of the division active military personnel. In 1998, the dominant language in the division was

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

, with over 90% of the population speaking it as their mother tongue.

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

is spoken by about 1% of the population, and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Saraiki are spoken by about 0.35% and 0.3% of the population respectively. Of the remaining 5% of the population, most are suspected to speak the Kohati dialect of

Hindko Hindko (, romanized: , ) is a cover term for a diverse group of Lahnda dialects spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in several areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punj ...

(a language for which official statistics were not collected in 1998), which was predominant in urban Kohat more than a century ago.

Notes

:A. Before 2018, the Kurram Agency (now

), the Orakzai Agency (now

), and the Frontier Region Kohat were not a part of Kohat Division, but were a part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, then outside

. :B. There were only three constituencies solely inside Kohat Division at the time of the

2018 Pakistani general election General elections were held in Pakistan on Wednesday, 25 July 2018 to elect the members of 15th National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies. The three major parties Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan, the Pakistan Musli ...

, but there was a fourth constituency, NA-51, that was made of regions from different divisions. NA-51 covered the Frontier Region Kohat in Kohat Division, but the area only makes up 33.15% of the population of the constituency and 3.69% of the population of the division, so it is omitted in the infobox. That seat was won by

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal The Muttahida Majlis–e–Amal (MMA; Urdu: , "United Council of Action") is a political alliance consisting of conservative, Islamist, religious, and far-right parties of Pakistan. Naeem Siddiqui (the founder of Tehreek e Islami) proposed su ...

. :C. At the time of the

, Kohat District sent three representatives to the KPK Assembly and Hangu District and

sent two each, but elections were held a year later (in 2019) in the areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that were formerly part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. At the time of the 2019 elections,

elected two representatives, and

elected one representative, which add up to ten for the entire division. Once again, though, there was another constituency, PK-115, that was made of regions from different divisions. PK-115 (just like NA-51) covered the Frontier Region Kohat in Kohat Division, but the area only makes up 33.15% of the population of the constituency and 3.69% of the population of the division, so it is omitted in the infobox. The seat was won by

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (Fazl) also Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) or simply as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Urdu: ; ; JUI-F) is a Deobandi Sunni political party in Pakistan. Established as the ''Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam'' in 1945, it is the result of ...

References

{{Reflist Divisions of Pakistan