Pakistan 🇵🇰

Pakistan is a sovereign country in Southern Asia, in the wider region of Asia. In formal use it is Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The capital is Islamabad.

Its territory runs to 881,912 km², which ranks it 35th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Venezuela and just ahead of Namibia. Put next to a country most people can picture, it is a fraction smaller than Venezuela.

Some 251.3 million people call it home, placing it 5th of 249 by population — between Indonesia above it and Nigeria below. Within Southern Asia alone it is the 3rd largest of 9 and the 2nd most populous.

Spread across 881,912 km², that works out at about 285 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. The median across all 249 entries here is about 91 per square kilometre.

The demonym is Pakistani, so residents are Pakistanis.

Officially it is multilingual, listing English and Urdu. Urdu is listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes it effectively unique to Pakistan. English, the first listed, is shared with 90 other entries worldwide.

Inside Asia it places 4th of 50 by population, and it accounts for 12% of everyone living in Southern Asia.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Pakistan ranks 35th of 249 by area and 5th by population. That works out at 0.59% of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 3.1% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Pakistan in the size ordering are Venezuela at 916,445 km² and Namibia at 825,615 km², against Pakistan's 881,912 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Pakistan averages 285 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 50th of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

Zoom in from the world to Southern Asia and Pakistan sits 2nd of 9 by population and 3rd by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is India just above and Bangladesh just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

India is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Southern Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇮🇳 India
• 🇧🇩 Bangladesh
• 🇮🇳 India

Its reference point sits at 30.0° north and 70.0° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 3,340 km from the equator, in what geographers would call subtropical latitudes.

Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include Algeria and Morocco.

Its land neighbours number 4: Afghanistan, China, India and Iran. The largest of them by area is China, while the most populous is India. Together those neighbours hold about 2.99 billion people.

Unlike its landlocked neighbours it reaches the sea directly, while also sharing land frontiers.

The Pakistani rupee (PKR) is used only in Pakistan among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Pakistan among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

The currency is the Pakistani rupee (₨, PKR). It is issued for Pakistan alone.

Islamabad is the city to remember for this country.

Its internet country code is .pk. The international dialling code is +92. In ISO terms it is pk in two letters and PAK in three.

As a sovereign state it is among the 192 UN members listed here. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.