Cherat (

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 ...

: چېراټ) is a

hill station A hill station is a touristic town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain or valley. The English term was originally used mostly in Western imperialism in Asia, colonial Asia, but also in Africa (albeit rarely), for towns founded by ...

dating from the 1860s that is located immediately above the villages of Chapri, Bakhti, Saleh Khana, Kotli Kalan and Dak Ismail Khel in the

Nowshera District Nowshera District (, ) is a district in the Peshawar Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The capital and district headquarter is Nowshera city. Overview and history Nowshera was previously a tehsil (subdivision) of Pesha ...

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a province of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the fourth largest province of Paki ...

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# ...

. Cherat lies 34 miles south east from the city of

Peshawar Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...

at an elevation of 4,500 feet on the west of the Khattak range, which divides the district of Nowshera from

Kohat District Kohat District (, ) is a district in the Kohat Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Kohat city is its district capital. History Mughal era From the early sixteenth century, the history of Kohat revolves around three ma ...

History

During

British rule The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or dire ...

Cherat was important as a hill cantonment and sanitarium for British troops in what was then the Nowshera Tehsil of the Peshawar District of British India.Cherāt - Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 10, p. 193
/ref> Cherat was first used as a sanitarium for troops in 1861 and was used during the hot weather as a health station for the British troops who were quartered in the hot and malarious valley of Peshawar. It was declared a cantonment in 1886. The cantonment commands a view of the whole of the Peshawar valley on one side, and on the other of a portion of the Khwarra valley in Peshawar District, and of Kohat District as far as the Indus. A hospital, a church, and a few bungalows were built by the British authorities. The station, which has a good water supply, was throughout the summer the headquarters of the

Peshawar Division Peshawar Division is an administrative division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. It was abolished in the reforms of 2000, like all divisions, but reinstated in 2008. At independence in 1947, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then North-West Fron ...

command, and of one of the two British regiments stationed at Peshawar - a detachment of the other British regiment was also sent here. There were 376 inhabitants according to the March 1901 Census, but in the hot season the garrison sometimes numbered 1,000 men.

Demographics

Population

As of the 2023 census, Cherat had a population of 1,311.

Military

In the 1920s the British had a wireless intercept station there. The fort is used as a base by the

Special Service Group The Special Service Group (SSG) are the special forces of the Pakistan Army. They are also known by their nickname of "Maroon Berets" due to their headgear. The SSG is responsible to deploy and execute five doctrinal missions: foreign inte ...

and is used for training of the army. As part of joint military events with several nations, Cherat has also hosted an Improving Command Course in 2010.Azerbaijan hold joint military events with USA, Turkey, Germany and Pakistan

References

{{Pakistan Army template Military facilities of the Pakistan Army Populated places in Nowshera District