History of Pakistan: Timeline, Rulers & Map

2,000,000 BCE – 1,501 BCE

Prehistory & Indus Valley

Farming at Mehrgarh in Balochistan began by about 7000 BCE, and the Indus Valley Civilisation matured between 2600 and 1900 BCE around Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and Ganeriwala. About 406 Pakistani sites had been reported by 2008, and the end of urban life remains debated.

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c. 1.9–2 million years ago (disputed) Riwat pebble tools, Soan Valley At Riwat, in the Soan Valley of northern Punjab, a British archaeological mission found crude stone artefacts in 1983.
c. 2600 BCE Nausharo and the shift from Mehrgarh Nausharo lies about six kilometres from Mehrgarh on the Kachi Plain of Balochistan.
c. 2500 BCE (site occupied c. 4000–1700 BCE) Mohenjo-daro's bronze Dancing Girl The Dancing Girl is a bronze statuette from Mohenjo-daro, dated to about 2500 BCE. It portrays a slender young woman with one hand on her hip and a long armful of bangles, and it is one of the finest surviving metal figures made by Indus craftspeople.
c. 2000–1900 BCE (c. 1950 BCE in the infobox) Priest-King figure of Mohenjo-daro The 'Priest-King' is a steatite bust about 17.5 centimetres high and 11 centimetres wide, probably part of a larger seated or kneeling figure.
c. 1700 BCE Indo-Aryan migrations into the north-west Linguists and archaeologists propose that speakers of early Indo-Aryan languages moved into the north-west of the subcontinent in the second millennium BCE, probably in slow waves after about 2000 BCE. One proposal by Asko Parpola places an immigration into the Punjab around 1700–1400 BCE, with an earlier movement around 1900 BCE.

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1,500 BCE – 551 BCE

Vedic & Iron Age

The Rigveda names the Gandhara tribe, and the Gandhara grave culture of the Swat and Peshawar valleys dates to roughly 1400-800 BCE. By the sixth century BCE Gandhara counted among the sixteen mahajanapadas, with Taxila and Pushkalavati as notable centres.

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c. 1500–1000 BCE (range c. 1900–1200 BCE proposed) Composition of the Rigveda in the Sapta Sindhu The Rigveda is a collection of 1,028 hymns in ten books, about 10,552 verses, composed in an early form of Sanskrit.
c. 14th century BCE (c. 1450–1300 BCE per Witzel) Early settlement at Pushkalavati Pushkalavati, 'Lotus City', lies on the outskirts of Charsadda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, about 35 to 42 kilometres north-east of Peshawar, near the junction of the Swat and Kabul rivers.
c. 1000–800 BCE Iron at Pirak Pirak's later occupation, Period III, is dated to about 1000–800 BCE, and the settlement also yielded the first iron pieces in its Period II. Excavators found more iron in the final phase, with continuity from earlier periods in pottery, figurines and crops, indicating that ironworking arrived gradually into an existing community.
c. 900 BCE Iron use at Charsadda Charsadda, in the Peshawar valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is cited among the securely dated early iron sites in South Asia, with iron in use there around 900 BCE. Other early reliable dates come from Hallur in Karnataka and Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu, around 1000 BCE, while claims of much earlier iron in southern India are disputed.
c. 6th century BCE Gandhara among the sixteen Mahajanapadas Buddhist texts such as the Anguttara Nikaya list Gandhara among the sixteen Mahajanapadas, the large kingdoms and republics of the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. Gandhara's core was the Peshawar valley between the Indus, Swat and Kabul rivers, with Pushkalavati and later Taxila as principal centres.

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550 BCE – 185 BCE

Achaemenid, Alexander & Mauryan

Persian rule created a Gandhara satrapy in 518 BCE, and Alexander defeated Porus on the Jhelum in 326 BCE according to Wikipedia's dating. The Mauryas then held Gandhara and made Taxila a provincial capital under Ashoka before the empire ended around 185 BCE.

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c. 535–530 BCE Persian annexation of Gandhara Sometime in the later sixth century BCE, Gandhara, the fertile region around modern Peshawar and Charsadda, passed under Persian control.
c. 4th century BCE Pāṇini composes the Aṣṭādhyāyī Pāṇini, a grammarian linked by tradition to Salatura in ancient Gandhara (in what is now Swabi District), composed the Aṣṭādhyāyī, a Sanskrit grammar of roughly 3,959 to 3,996 rules, depending on the edition.
early 326 BCE Battle of the Hydaspes In May 326 BCE, Alexander the Great met Porus on the banks of the Hydaspes (Jhelum) in the Punjab.
c. 305–303 BCE Seleucid–Mauryan war and treaty Around 305 to 303 BCE, the Seleucid ruler Seleucus I led an army to the Indus to reclaim the eastern satrapies of Alexander's old empire, then held by Chandragupta Maurya.
c. 185 BCE (between 185 and 180 BCE) Fall of the Maurya Empire The ninth and last Mauryan emperor, Brihadratha, ruled from about 187 to 185 BCE. According to Bāṇabhaṭṭa's Harshacharita, his army chief Pushyamitra Shunga staged a parade of the whole Mauryan army before him and killed him in front of the troops.

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184 BCE – 240

Indo-Greek, Scythian & Kushan

Menander ruled the Punjab from Sagala around 150 BCE while the Indo-Greek kingdom spanned about 1.1 million square kilometres. Saka and Parthian kings followed, then the Kushans, whose Kanishka made Peshawar a capital after 127 CE and patronised Gandharan Buddhist art.

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c. 190–180 BCE Greco-Bactrian invasion of Gandhara and the Punjab Around 190 to 180 BCE, Demetrius I of Bactria led Greek armies across the Hindu Kush into present-day Pakistan.
c. 100 BCE – 200 CE Milinda Pañha records the dialogue of Menander and Nagasena The Milindapañha, or Questions of Milinda, is a Pali Buddhist work recording dialogue between the sage Nagasena and the Indo-Greek king Menander (Pali: Milinda), introduced as king of the city of Sagala in India.
c. 46 CE (tradition) Apollonius of Tyana at Taxila In Philostratus's Life of Apollonius, the Greek philosopher Apollonius of Tyana travels to India and meets Phraotes, the Indo-Parthian king of Taxila, around 46 CE. Two and a half of the eight books describe the Indian journey.
c. 127 CE (formerly dated 78 CE) Kanishka's accession Kanishka I became Kushan emperor around 127 CE, according to Harry Falk's estimate, and ruled until about 150.
229 CE Kushan embassy to Cao Wei In 229 CE, the Kushan emperor Vasudeva I sent an envoy with tribute to the court of Cao Wei in China.

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241 – 711

Gupta, Huna & Shahi

Sasanian-backed Kushanshahs held Gandhara until Kidarites arrived around 360, and Alchon Huns overran the northwest by about 500. The Hephthalite world fell to a Turkic-Sasanian alliance around 560, while the Gupta empire's reach into Pakistan's lands remains unproven.

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c. 250 CE Sasanian Rule Reaches Gandhara In the middle of the third century the Sasanians of Persia seized Bactria, Sogdia and Gandhara from the declining Kushan realm.
c. 400 CE Faxian Visits Gandhara and Taxila The Chinese monk Faxian left Chang'an in 399 to seek authentic Buddhist texts in India, entering the subcontinent from the northwest in the early fifth century.
520 CE Song Yun Reaches Udyana and Gandhara The Chinese Buddhist monk Song Yun left Luoyang in 518 with companions, sent at the request of an empress to collect scriptures.
c. 631 CE Chach Seizes the Throne of Sindh According to the Chach Nama, a Brahmin official named Chach rose to rule Sindh around 631 after the last Rai king died childless.
711 CE Arabs Capture Debal In 711 a force led by the young commander Muhammad bin Qasim besieged and took the port of Debal, the first town of Sindh to fall.

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712 – 1000

Arab Conquest & Early Islamic Sind

Muhammad bin Qasim's campaign of 711-713 brought Sindh, southern Punjab to Multan and Makran under the Umayyads. Multan later became an independent emirate under the Banu Munabbih in 861 and an Isma'ili centre aligned with the Fatimids from 959, while the Hindu Shahis ruled the north.

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712 CE Battle of Aror Ends the Rule of Dahir In 712 the Arab army met the forces of Raja Dahir at Aror, near Rohri on the Indus.
747 CE Tang General Conquers Little Balur near Gilgit In 747 the Tang general Gao Xianzhi led a three-pronged force of about ten thousand cavalry across the Pamirs and surprised Lesser Bolu, a city-state around modern Gilgit.
c. 855 CE Banu Munabbih Establish an Emirate at Multan From about 855 to 959 the Banu Munabbih, Arab emirs claiming descent from the Quraysh, ruled Multan after Abbasid authority in Sindh weakened.
977 CE Sabuktigin Founds the Ghaznavid Dynasty The Ghaznavid dynasty is usually dated from 977, when Sabuktigin, a former slave-soldier, took control of Ghazna in modern Afghanistan.
991 CE Second Battle of Lamghan In 991 the Ghaznavid army routed the forces of the Hindu Shahi king Jayapala near Kindi in the Lamghan region.

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1001 – 1525

Ghaznavids, Ghurids & Delhi Sultanate

Mahmud took Peshawar in 1001, Lahore became the Ghaznavid capital after 1163, and Muhammad of Ghor seized Multan in 1175 and Lahore in 1186. The Delhi Sultanate began in 1206 with Lahore as capital, while Sindh was ruled by Soomras and Sammas.

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27 November 1001 Battle of Peshawar On 27 November 1001 Mahmud of Ghazni led about fifteen thousand cavalry, with ten thousand ghazi volunteers, against a Hindu Shahi army reported at twelve thousand cavalry, thirty thousand infantry and three hundred elephants.
c. 1072 CE Ali Hujwiri Dies in Lahore Ali al-Hujwiri, known as Data Sahib, settled in Lahore, where he died as a respected preacher.
4 November 1210 Death of Qutb ud-Din Aibak at Lahore In November 1210 Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the Turkic former slave-general who had inherited the Ghurid conquests in northern India, died at Lahore.
12 September 1333 Ibn Battuta Reaches the Indus On 12 September 1333 Ibn Battuta and his party reached the Indus River, entering the Delhi Sultanate.
1524–1525 Babur's Punjab Campaigns and the March on Lahore In 1524 Babur set out from Kabul for Lahore after Daulat Khan Lodi had been driven out by forces sent by Ibrahim Lodi.

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1526 – 1738

Mughal Empire

Babur's victory at Panipat in 1526 opened Mughal rule, and Lahore served as a capital from 1586 to 1598. Whole-empire area reached about 4.0 million square kilometres in 1690, and the population is estimated at 158.4 million around 1700, before Nader Shah's invasion of 1738-1739.

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21 April 1526 First Battle of Panipat On 21 April 1526 Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat, north of Delhi.
c. 1566 Lahore Fort Rebuilt In about 1566 the foundations of the present Lahore Fort were laid, replacing earlier mud forts at the site.
1634–1641 Wazir Khan Mosque Built in Lahore Work on the Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore began in 1634 or 1635 and took roughly seven years, with Wikipedia's infobox giving the completion date as 3 December 1641.
1672–1674 Afridi and Mohmand Uprising on the Khyber Road In 1672 the Afridi chief Darya Khan closed the Khyber Pass and proclaimed tribal war on the Mughals.
26 November 1738 Nader Shah Defeats the Mughals at the Khyber Pass On 26 November 1738 (15 November Old Style) Nader Shah's Afsharid army defeated the Mughal governor of Kabul, Nasir Khan, in the Khyber Pass between Ali Masjid and Jamrud, about 12 miles west of Peshawar.

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1739 – 1848

Durrani, Sikh & Regional Powers

Nader Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, Ahmad Shah Durrani founded his empire in 1747, and Ranjit Singh took Lahore in 1799 and ruled a Sikh empire of about 520,000 square kilometres by 1839. Kalhoras and Talpurs held Sindh until the British victory at Miani in 1843.

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24 February – 16 May 1739 Nader Shah's invasion of the Mughal Empire In early 1739 a Persian army under Nader Shah crossed the north-west frontier, defeated the Mughal field army at Karnal on 24 February and entered Delhi on 20 March.
5 February 1762 Vadda Ghallughara, the Great Massacre of the Sikhs On 5 February 1762 a Durrani army caught a large Sikh column near Kup, close to Malerkotla, and attacked it.
January – June 1818 Siege and fall of Multan From early 1818 a Sikh army under Misr Diwan Chand, with Prince Kharak Singh as nominal leader, besieged Multan.
December 1838 – October 1842 Army of the Indus and the First Anglo-Afghan War In late 1838 the East India Company assembled the Army of the Indus, about 21,000 troops with Sikh contingents, to restore the exiled Shah Shuja in Afghanistan.
April 1848 – February 1849 Multan revolt and the Second Anglo-Sikh War In April 1848 Diwan Mulraj's men attacked the British officers Patrick Vans Agnew and William Anderson at Multan, killing both.

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1849 – 1919

British Raj

Punjab was annexed in 1849, and the Frontier province was carved from five Punjab districts in 1901. British Punjab, including areas now in India, grew from 24.4 million in 1901 to 25.1 million in 1921, while the Durand Line of 1893 set the western frontier.

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21 February 1849 Battle of Gujrat On 21 February 1849 about 24,000 Company troops with more than 96 guns under Hugh Gough met roughly 20,000 Sikhs with 59 guns under Sher Singh at Gujrat.
October – December 1863 Ambela campaign In October 1863 a British Indian force of some 6,000 under Neville Chamberlain advanced through the Ambela Pass to attack the Hindustani mujahideen at Malka in Buner.
1–20 December 1891 Hunza–Nagar campaign In December 1891 a British Indian force led by Colonel Algernon Durand advanced against the princely states of Hunza and Nagar in the Karakoram.
March – May 1907 1907 Punjab unrest In 1907 protests spread through the Punjab against the Colonisation Bill of 1906, which imposed strict inheritance rules on canal-colony allotments so that land would revert to the government if a holder left no direct male heir.
18 March 1919 Government of India Act 1919 introduces dyarchy The Government of India Act 1919 received royal assent on 23 December 1919.

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1920 – 1947

Freedom Movement & Partition

Sind became a separate province in 1936, and the Frontier voted for Pakistan in a July 1947 referendum with 99.02 percent. The Radcliffe award of 17 August 1947 divided Punjab and Bengal, and about 14.5 million people crossed the new borders.

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1920–1922 Khilafat Movement and the Hijrat from the Frontier In 1920 the All India Khilafat Committee, founded at Lucknow, issued a manifesto and allied with the Indian National Congress.
31 May 1935 Quetta Earthquake In the early hours of 31 May 1935 a powerful earthquake struck Baluchistan.
December 1945 – March 1946 1945–46 Elections and the Muslim League Landslide Provincial elections were held in British India from December 1945 to January 1946, with results for the North-West Frontier Province coming in March 1946.
March 1947 Indian Independence Act 1947 The Indian Independence Act received Royal Assent on 18 July 1947.
March 1947 Gilgit Rebellion On 1 November 1947, the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary force in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, rebelled and removed Governor Ghansara Singh in a largely bloodless coup.

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1948 – 1971

Early Pakistan

Kalat acceded in March 1948, One Unit created West Pakistan in 1955, and the republic began in 1956 with East Bengal renamed East Pakistan. The 1951 census counted 75.64 million across both wings, and the war of December 1971 ended with East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh.

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March 1948 Urdu Declared the State Language in Dhaka In March 1948, Governor-General Muhammad Ali Jinnah visited Dhaka and declared that Urdu, and only Urdu, should be the state language of Pakistan.
March 1954 Dissolution of the First Constituent Assembly In October 1954 the Governor-General dissolved Pakistan's Constituent Assembly after it moved to amend the Government of India Act 1935 in order to limit his powers.
1961–1967 Pakistan's Space Programme Begins The Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, SUPARCO, was named on 16 September 1961 under the physicist Abdus Salam.
January – March 1969 Second Martial Law and Power Transfer On 25 March 1969, President Ayub Khan resigned and transferred power to the army commander-in-chief, General Yahya Khan, rather than to the National Assembly speaker as the constitution required.
7 March 1971 Power Passes to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto On 20 December 1971, four days after the surrender in Dhaka, President Yahya Khan handed the presidency to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

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1972 – 1988

Bhutto & Zia

The Simla Agreement of July 1972 turned the Kashmir ceasefire line into the Line of Control, and the 1981 census counted 84,253,644 people. India's 1984 Operation Meghdoot on the Saltoro Ridge made Siachen a standing frontline of about 2,500 square kilometres.

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20 January 1972 Multan Meeting Launches Nuclear Weapons Programme On 20 January 1972, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto summoned Pakistan's leading scientists and engineers to Multan and told them the country would pursue nuclear weapons.
31 July 1976 Engineering Research Laboratories Founded at Kahuta On 31 July 1976 the government established the Engineering Research Laboratories at Kahuta, near Rawalpindi, with the metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan as principal investigator.
1979 Afghan Refugees Arrive in Pakistan Following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan at the end of December 1979, large numbers of Afghans began crossing into Pakistan.
1985 Non-Party General Election of 1985 On 25 February 1985 Pakistan held its first National Assembly election since 1977, on a non-party basis.
10 April 1988 General Election of 1988 and Benazir Bhutto Becomes Prime Minister Pakistan voted on 16 November 1988 in a party-based election.

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1989 – 2007

Democracy & Musharraf

Borders stayed unchanged while the 1998 census counted 132,352,279 people, or 136,208,780 with Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Construction of the first phase of Gwadar port began in 2007, anchoring a coast bought from Oman in 1958, while the Line of Control and the Durand Line stayed contested.

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6 August 1990 Dismissal of Benazir Bhutto and the 1990 Election On 6 August 1990 the president used Article 58(2)(b) to dismiss Benazir Bhutto's government and dissolve the National Assembly, citing corruption and maladministration.
March 1998 Census of 1998 Pakistan carried out its fifth national population census in March 1998, seventeen years after the previous count in 1981.
23 January 2002 Kidnapping of Daniel Pearl On 23 January 2002 Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped in Karachi while on his way to what he believed was an interview with an Islamic cleric.
14 May 2006 Killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti On 26 August 2006 Nawab Akbar Bugti, a Baloch tribal chief and former provincial governor and chief minister, was killed in a military operation in the hills near Kohlu in Balochistan.
9 March 2007 Assassination of Benazir Bhutto On 27 December 2007 Benazir Bhutto was killed as she left a rally at Liaquat National Bagh in Rawalpindi.

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2008 – present

Modern Pakistan

Gilgit-Baltistan was renamed in 2009 and the Frontier province became Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2010. FATA merged into it on 31 May 2018, and the 2023 census counted 241,499,431 people, or 247,541,947 with Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, a region India claims.

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18 February 2008 2008 General Election On 18 February 2008 Pakistanis voted for the 342-seat National Assembly and four provincial assemblies.
15 June 2014 Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan On 15 June 2014 the Pakistan Army began Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan, targeting militant hideouts, training sites and infrastructure around Miranshah and Mir Ali.
26 February 2020 Pakistan Democratic Movement Formed On 20 September 2020 an all parties conference in Islamabad, hosted by PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, founded the Pakistan Democratic Movement as an alliance against the government.
16–19 January 2024 Arshad Nadeem Wins Olympic Javelin Gold On 8 August 2024 Arshad Nadeem won the javelin final at the Paris Olympics with a throw of 92.97 metres, an Olympic and Asian record that beat Andreas Thorkildsen's 90.57 metres from 2008.
17–19 January 2026 Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Turkey On 7 August 2026 Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement in Makkah.

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Achaemenid, Alexander & Mauryan

Indo-Greek, Scythian & Kushan

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Ghaznavids, Ghurids & Delhi Sultanate

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