City 2012 Olx Karachi

[Princesex Voskamp]

Theregion has been inhabited for millennia,[26] but the city was formally founded as the fortified village of Kolachi as recently as 1729.[27][28] The settlement greatly increased in importance with the arrival of the East India Company in the mid-19th century. British administrators embarked on substantial projects to transform the city into a major seaport, and connect it with the extensive railway network of the Indian subcontinent.[28] At the time of Pakistan's independence in 1947, the city was the largest in Sindh with an estimated population of 400,000 people.[22] Afterwards, the city experienced a dramatic shift in population and demography with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants from India,[29] coupled with an exodus of most of its Hindu residents.[30] The city experienced rapid economic growth following Pakistan's independence, attracting migrants from throughout the country and other regions in South Asia.[31] According to the 2023 Census of Pakistan, Karachi's total population was 20.3 million.[32] Karachi is one of the world's fastest-growing cities,[33] and has significant communities representing almost every ethnic group in Pakistan. Karachi holds more than two million Bengali immigrants, a million Afghan refugees, and up to 400,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar.[34][35][36]

Karachi is now Pakistan's premier industrial and financial centre. The city has a formal economy estimated to be worth $190 billion as of 2021[update], which is the largest in the country.[37][38] Karachi collects 35% of Pakistan's tax revenue,[39] and generates approximately 25% of Pakistan's entire GDP.[40][41] Approximately 30% of Pakistani industrial output is from Karachi,[42] while Karachi's ports handle approximately 95% of Pakistan's foreign trade.[43] Approximately 90% of the multinational corporations and 100% of the banks operating in Pakistan are headquartered in Karachi.[43] It also serves as a transport hub, and contains Pakistan's two largest seaports, the Port of Karachi and Port Qasim, as well as Pakistan's busiest airport, Jinnah International Airport.[44] Karachi is also considered to be Pakistan's fashion capital,[45][46] and has hosted the annual Karachi Fashion Week since 2009.[47][48]

Modern Karachi was reputedly founded in 1729 as the settlement of Kolachi-jo-Goth during the rule of Kalhora dynasty.[27] The new settlement is said to have been named in honour of Mai Kolachi, whose son is said to have slain a man-eating crocodile in the village after his elder brothers had already been killed by it.[27] The name Karachee, a shortened and corrupted version of the original name Kolachi-jo-Goth, was used for the first time in a Dutch report from 1742 about a shipwreck near the settlement.[53][54]

The region around Karachi has been the site of human habitation for millennia. Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites have been excavated in the Mulri Hills along Karachi's northern outskirts. These earliest inhabitants are believed to have been hunter-gatherers, with ancient flint tools discovered at several sites.

The expansive Karachi region is believed to have been known to the ancient Greeks, and may have been the site of Barbarikon, an ancient seaport which was located at the nearby mouth of the Indus River.[55][56][57][58] Karachi may also have been referred to as Ramya in ancient Greek texts.[59]

The ancient site of Krokola, a natural harbour west of the Indus where Alexander the Great sailed his fleet for Achaemenid Assyria, may have been located near the mouth of Karachi's Malir River,[60][61][62] though some believe it was located near Gizri.[63][64] No other natural harbour exists near the mouth of the Indus that could accommodate a large fleet.[65] Nearchus, who commanded Alexander's naval fleet, also mentioned a hilly island by the name of Morontobara and an adjacent flat island named Bibakta, which colonial historians identified as Karachi's Manora Point and Kiamari (or Clifton), respectively, based on Greek descriptions.[66][67][68] Both areas were island until well into the colonial era, when silting in led to them being connected to the mainland.[69]

In 711 CE, Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the Sindh and Indus Valley and the port of Debal, from where he launched his forces further into the Indus Valley in 712.[70] Some have identified the port with Karachi, though some argue the location was somewhere between Karachi and the nearby city of Thatta.[71][72]

A new settlement was built in 1729 at the site of Dibro, which came to be known as Kolachi-jo-Goth ("The village of Kolachi").[27] The new settlement is said to have been named in honour of Mai Kolachi, a resident of the old settlement whose son is said to have slain a man-eating crocodile.[27] Kolachi was about 40 hectares in size, with some smaller fishing villages scattered in its vicinity.[79] The founders of the new fortified settlement were Sindhi Baniyas,[78] and are said to have arrived from the nearby town of Kharak Bandar after the harbour there silted in 1728 after heavy rains.[80] Kolachi was fortified, and defended with cannons imported from Muscat, Oman. Under the Talpurs, the Rah-i-Bandar road was built to connect the city's port to the caravan terminals.[81] This road would eventually be further developed by the British into Bandar Road, which was renamed Muhammad Ali Jinnah Road.[82][83]

The name Karachee was used for the first time in a Dutch document from 1742, in which a merchant ship de Ridderkerk is shipwrecked near the settlement.[53][54] In 1770s, Karachi came under the control of the Khan of Kalat, which attracted a second wave of Balochi settlers.[78] In 1795, Karachi was annexed by the Talpurs, triggering a third wave of Balochi settlers who arrived from central Sindh and southern Punjab.[78] The Talpurs built the Manora Fort in 1797,[84][85] which was used to protect Karachi's Harbour from al-Qasimi pirates.[86]

In 1799 or 1800, the founder of the Talpur dynasty, Mir Fateh Ali Khan, allowed the East India Company under Nathan Crow to establish a trading post in Karachi.[87] He was allowed to build a house for himself in Karachi at that time, but by 1802 was ordered to leave the city.[88] The city continued to be ruled by the Talpurs until it was occupied by forces under the command of John Keane in February 1839.[89]

The British East India Company captured Karachi on 3 February 1839 after HMS Wellesley opened fire and quickly destroyed Manora Fort, which guarded Karachi Harbour at Manora Point.[90] Karachi's population at the time was an estimated 8,000 to 14,000,[91] and was confined to the walled city in Mithadar, with suburbs in what is now the Serai Quarter.[92] British troops, known as the "Company Bahadur" established a camp to the east of the captured city, which became the precursor to the modern Karachi Cantonment. The British further developed the Karachi Cantonment as a military garrison to aid the British war effort in the First Anglo-Afghan War.[93]

Sindh's capital was shifted from Hyderabad to Karachi in 1840 when Karachi was annexed to the British Empire after Major General Charles James Napier captured the rest of Sindh following his victory against the Talpurs at the Battle of Miani. Following the 1843 annexation, on 17 February the entire province was amalgamated into the Bombay Presidency for the next 93 years, and Karachi remain the divisional headquarter. A few years later in 1846, Karachi suffered a large cholera outbreak, which led to the establishment of the Karachi Cholera Board (predecessor to the city's civic government).[95]

The city grew under the administration of its new Commissioner, Henry Bartle Edward Frere, who was appointed in the 1850s. Karachi was recognized for its strategic importance, prompting the British to establish the Port of Karachi in 1854. Karachi rapidly became a transportation hub for British India owing to newly built port and rail infrastructure, as well as the increase in agricultural exports from the opening of productive tracts of newly irrigated land in Punjab and Sindh.[96] By 1856, the value of goods traded through Karachi reached 855,103, leading to the establishment of merchant offices and warehouses.[97] The population in 1856 is estimated to have been 57,000.[98] During the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the 21st Native Infantry, then stationed in Karachi, mutinied and declared allegiance to rebel forces in September 1857, though the British were able to quickly defeat the rebels and reassert control over the city.

Following the Rebellion, British colonial administrators continued to develop the city's infrastructure, but continued to neglect localities like Lyari, which was home to the city's original population of Sindhi fishermen and Balochi nomads.[99] At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Karachi's port became an important cotton-exporting port,[98] with Indus Steam Flotilla and Orient Inland Steam Navigation Company established to transport cotton from rest of Sindh to Karachi's port, and onwards to textile mills in England.[100] With increased economic opportunities, economic migrants from several ethnicities and religions, including Anglo-British, Parsis, Marathis, and Goan Christians, among others, established themselves in Karachi,[98] with many setting-up businesses in the new commercial district of Saddar. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was born in Karachi's Wazir Mansion in 1876 to such migrants from Gujarat. Public building works were undertaken at this time in Gothic and Indo-Saracenic styles, including the construction of Frere Hall in 1865 and the later Empress Market in 1889.

With the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, Karachi's position as a major port increased even further.[98] In 1878, the British Raj connected Karachi with the network of British India's vast railway system. In 1887, Karachi Port underwent radical improvements with connection to the railways, along with expansion and dredging of the port, and construction of a breakwater.[98] Karachi's first synagogue was established in 1893.[101] By 1899, Karachi had become the largest wheat-exporting port in the East.[102] In 1901, Karachi's population was 117,000 with a further 109,000 included in the Municipal area.[98]

3a8082e126