Pakistan profile

Map source: OCHA/ReliefWeb

Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia with a population of 180.8 million people. The capital city is Islamabad, and the official languages are Urdu and English. Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, and has the second largest Muslim population after Indonesia.

Pakistan was born out of the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 and has faced numerous political upheavals and regional confrontations ever since.

Politics in Pakistan has been tarnished by violence, corruption, inefficiency and confrontations between various institutions.

Alternating periods of civilian and military rule have added to the instability.
Since 2009, Pakistani forces have struggled to maintain control over the restive tribal regions along the Afghan border, where Taliban-linked militants are firmly entrenched. Tensions with India over the disputed region of Kashmir have resurfaced regularly since the partition of the sub-continent.

For information about GOAL's work in Pakistan, please click here.

Pakistan - Fact Box

Average life expectancy: 65.9 years (males), 66.5 years (females)

Infant mortality rate: 72 per 1,000 live births (World Bank, 2009)

Children under five underweight for their age: 38 per cent

Probability at birth of not surviving to age of 40: 12.6 per cent

Population not using an improved water source: 10 per cent

People living below poverty line of US$2 a day: 60.3 per cent

Gross National Income (GNI) per capita: US$950

Pakistan was ranked 141st out of 182 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index (2009)

The statistics in the Fact Box relate to pre the flooding disaster of July-August 2010 and, unless otherwise stated, have been sourced from the United Nations' Development Report 2009.