Dera Ghazi Khan (

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Saraiki: , bal, ڈیرہ غازی خان) 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 counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

in the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

province of

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 ...

. Its capital is the town of

Dera Ghazi Khan Dera Ghazi Khan (), abbreviated as D.G. Khan, is a city in the southwestern part of Punjab, Pakistan. It is the 19th largest city of Pakistan by population. Lying west of the Indus River, it is the headquarters of Dera Ghazi Khan District and ...

. Most of its inhabitants are

Saraikis The Saraikis ( skr, ), are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group inhabiting parts of central and southeastern Pakistan, primarily in the southern part of the Pakistani province of Punjab They are mainly found in a region of southern Punjab known ...

and Baloch. The district lies to the west 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 Kashmir, ...

. The

Sulaiman Mountains The Sulaiman Mountains, also known as Kōh-e Sulaymān ( Balochi/Urdu/ fa, ; "Mountains of Solomon") or Da Kasē Ghrūna ( ps, د كسې غرونه; "Mountains of Kasi"), are a north–south extension of the southern Hindu Kush mountain system i ...

rise to a height of in the north of the district.

Administration

The district is divided into three

tehsil A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...

s which are divided into a total of sixty Union Councils:

History

The city was founded at the close of the 15th century and named after Nawab Ghazi Khan Mirani, son of Nawab Haji Khan Mirani, a Balochi chieftain, who had declared independence from the Langah Dynasty's

Sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...

s of

Multan Multan (; ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan, on the bank of the Chenab River. Multan is Pakistan's seventh largest city as per the 2017 census, and the major cultural, religious and economic centre of southern Punjab. Multan is one of the List ...

. Together with two other ''Deras'' i.e. settlements,

Dera Ismail Khan Dera Ismail Khan (; bal, , Urdu and skr, , ps, ډېره اسماعيل خان), abbreviated as D.I. Khan, is a city and capital of Dera Ismail Khan District, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the 37th largest city of Pakistan ...

and Dera Fateh Khan, it gave its name to

Derajat Derajat ( Punjabi/Urdu: ), the plural of the word 'dera', is a cultural region of central Pakistan, located in the region where the provinces of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan meet. Derajat is bound by the Indus River to the east, and ...

eventually came into the possession of the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

after the

Sikh War A Sikh War may mean: *The Mughal-Sikh Wars *The Afghan–Sikh Wars *The Gurkha-Sikh War (1809) *The Sino-Sikh War (1841-1842) *The First Anglo-Sikh War (1845–1846) *The Second Anglo-Sikh War The Second Anglo-Sikh War was a military co ...

in 1849 and was divided into two districts: Dera Ghazi Khan and

. After the

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

, many of the city's

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

residents settled in

Derawal Nagar Derawal Nagar is a neighbourhood in Delhi, India which is named after people of the Derawal community. Originally native to the Derajat region (districts of Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan in present-day Pakistan). These individuals, who ar ...

colony of

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The district of

Rajanpur Rajanpur ( ur, ), is a city and the headquarters of Rajanpur District in the far southwestern part of Punjab, Pakistan. The district lies entirely west of the Indus River. it is a narrow, to wide strip of land sandwiched between the Indus Riv ...

was later carved out of the Dera Ghazi Khan district. Based on the surveys of 2004–2005, Dera Ghazi Khan district is considered one of the twenty poorest districts of Pakistan with about 51% of its population living under the poverty line.

Dera Ghazi Khan Tehsil

As well as being district capital, Dera Ghazi Khan is also the capital of U/ C Sabra Nachan.

Dera Ghazi Khan Tehsil Dera Ghazi Khan ( ur, ), is an administrative subdivision (tehsil) of Dera Ghazi Khan District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The capital of the tehsil is Dera Ghazi Khan. History Dera Ghazi Khan Tehsil was created as a subdivision of Dera ...

, an administrative subdivision of the district. The city of Dera Ghazi Khan is itself administratively subdivided into seven Union Councils.

Demographics

At the time of the 2017 census the district had a population of 2,872,631, of which 1,451,327 were males and 1,421,127 females. Rural population is 2,326,410 while the urban population is 546,221. The literacy rate was 46.67%.

Religion

As per the 2017 census, Muslims made up nearly the entire population with 99.89%.

Languages

At the time 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 1998 Census of Pakist ...

, the distribution of the population of Dera Ghazi Khan District by

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

was as follows:Census-2017 - Detailed Tables
/ref> * 81.0% Saraiki * 14.7% Balochi * 2.6%

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

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 languages ...

* 0.7% Punjabi * 0.1% Sindhi * 0.0% Brahui * 0.0%

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 Pun ...

* 0.0%

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

* 0.1% Others

Notable people

Farooq Leghari Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari ( ur, ; 29 May 194020 October 2010), was a Pakistani politician who served as the eighth president of Pakistan from 14 November 1993 until resigning on 2 December 1997. He is the first Baloch to have been elected a ...

, former President of Pakistan *

Usman Buzdar Sardar Usman Ahmad Khan Buzdar ( ur, ; born 1 May 1969) is a Pakistani politician and previously served as Chief Minister of The Punjab from 20 August 2018 to 30 April 2022. He has been a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab since Aug ...

, former chief Minister of Punjab

Villages

* Khalid Abad

References

External links

{{Coord, 29, 50, N, 70, 30, E, region:PK_type:adm2nd_source:GNS-enwiki, display=title Districts of Punjab, Pakistan Derajat