Kohala () is a town in

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# ...

on the River Jhelum, north of Murree, south of Muzaffarabad, and east of Bagh. The town was at the

independence Independence is a condition of a 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 status of ...

in 1947 a border town between newly created Pakistan and the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, but is today only the border between the rest of Pakistan and

Azad Kashmir Azad Jammu and Kashmir (), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir ( ), is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entitySee: * * * and constituting the western portion of the larger ...

Location

Kohala is the site of the well-known

Kohala Bridge The Kohala Bridge is a bridge across the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus River, that forms part of one of the land routes from the Azad Kashmir to Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab in Pakistan. It is located on the E75 expressway (Pakistan), E75 exp ...

across the Jhelum. Kohala is a gateway to the Muzaffarabad and Bagh districts of

. It lies where the

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

, Kashmir and

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

boundaries meet.Lonely Planet Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway - 1741045428 Lindsay Brown, Paul Clammer, Rodney Cocks - 2008 Page 183 "Entry to Muzaffarabad district is from Mansehra (crossing at Gahri Habibullah) or Murree (crossing at Kohala)."

Etymology

There are two theories regarding the etymology of Kohala. One is that it originates from the name of a Hindu goddess Kohala Devi because Kohala was a place where Hindu deities were worshipped on the banks of the Watesta (Jhelum) River before the arrival of Islam. A temple called Dawal was there. Another theory is that Kohala is derived from the Dhondi/Kareali language ''kohal'', meaning "cattle room" or house that was divided in living room in ancient time or separate or beneath of living house in modern era, or ''gotrerhi'', a place where livestock stay and sit. Kohala is a place where caravans from Kashmir stayed after crossing Jhelum River and their horses and donkeys were tied there in antiquity. There are two Kohalas in the region; one is on both banks of river Jhelum and a Kohala Bala at

Lora LoRa (from "long range", sometimes abbreviated as "LR") is a physical proprietary radio communication technique. It is based on spread spectrum modulation techniques derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology. It was developed by Cycleo ...

, a union council of Abbottabad District.

History

Ancient era

In ancient times Kohala was a centre of Hindu pilgrimage who worshipped Kohala Devi. By the middle of 500 BCE Kohala had become a centre of the Buddhist community and a temple was constructed between Kohala and Knair Pull. It was a route of Buddhist monks for travelling from

Taxila Taxila or Takshashila () is a city in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is just south of the ...

to Sharda Buddhist university in Sharda, Kashmir.

18th century

Kohala was possessed by the Karlal tribe in the mid eighteenth century and in 1200