Karachi

Karachi (kərä`chē), city (1998 pop. 9,269,265), largest city and former capital of Pakistan, SE Pakistan, on the Arabian Sea near the Indus River delta. The capital of Sind prov., it is Pakistan's chief seaport and industrial center, a transportation, commercial, and financial hub, and a military headquarters. It has a large automobile assembly plant, an oil refinery, a steel mill, shipbuilding, railroad yards, jute and textile factories, printing and publishing plants, media and entertainment industries, food processing plants, and chemical and engineering works. Karachi airport is one of the busiest in Asia. Karachi has a university and other educational institutions; the national museum, with a fine archaeological collection; and the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan.

An old settlement, Karachi was developed as a port and trading center by Hindu merchants in the early 18th cent. In 1843 it passed to the British, who made it the seat of the Sind government. Steady improvements in harbor facilities made Karachi a leading Indian port by the late 19th cent., while agricultural development of the hinterland gave it a large export trade. Karachi served as Pakistan's capital from 1947, when the country gained independence, until 1959, when Rawalpindi became the interim capital pending completion of Islamabad. The political base of the Bhutto family (see Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali and Bhutto, Benazir), Karachi has been troubled since the 1980s by violence between local Sindhis and the descendants of muhajirs, the Muslim immigrants who fled to Pakistan following partition in 1947; the lawlessness in the city was further aggravated by Sunni-Shiite fighting in the 1990s. In the late 1990s the government began efforts to suppress the violence, but these have been only sporadically successful.

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Karachi

City (pop., 1998: 9,339,023; 2005 est.: urban agglom., 11,608,000), Pakistan. Located in southern Pakistan on the Arabian Sea northwest of the mouth of the Indus River, it was a small fishing village when traders arrived in the early 18th century. It was captured by the British in 1839 and was a major port of the British Empire by 1914. The provincial capital of Sindh from 1936, it was also the first capital of independent Pakistan (1947–59). Karachi is Pakistan's largest city, principal seaport, and a major industrial and commercial centre. It is the seat of the University of Karachi and the terminus of Pakistan's railway system.

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Karachi

a port in S Pakistan, on the Arabian Sea: capital of Pakistan (1947--60); university (1950); chief port: commercial and industrial centre. Pop.: 11 819 000 (2005 est.)