The name Pākistān means Land of the Pure in Persian and Urdu.
[/b]Administrative divisions[/b]
Pakistan is made up of four provinces, two territories and two special areas. Both special areas are in Kashmir. The provinces and territories were divided into 26 divisions with now 147 districts directly divided from the provinces. Each district is divided into several tehsils and each tehsil is divided into several union councils. There are around 596 tehsils and over 6,000 union councils of Pakistan.
[/b]Provinces[/b] :
Balochistan Balochistan
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly NWFP)
Punjab Punjab[10]
Sindh Sindh
[/b]History[/b] :
Pakistan became independent in 1947 from the Indian empire of British Raj. The first people in ancient Pakistan lived 9000 years ago. These people were the ones who made up the Indus Valley Civilization,[20] which is one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. After that, the Vedic period came. This also included parts of north-western India. Until 1971, Pakistan also included an area in the North-east India region. This is now called Bangladesh. It Lost that area after a war with Indian Army and the joint militant group of Indo-Bangladeshi alliance of Mitro Bahini of West Bengal. During hivi karibuni times Pakistan has been in the centre of world politics. This is firstly because of its support to guerillas in Afghanistan, following Soviet invasion 1979, and later during the 1990s because of its cooperation with and support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. However, since 2000 Pakistan has basically supported the West in their war against fundamentalist terrorism, including the removal of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Pakistan is a member of the Commonwealth. However, after the war in East Pakistan the country was excluded (between 1972-1989). It was also a member between 1999 and 2004. However, it is currently excluded from the Commonwealth (since November 2007).
