Pakistan's Sindh Province
MEMORANDUM October 29, 2015 To: Hon. Brad Sherman Attention: Kinsey Kiriakos From: K. Alan Kronstadt, Specialist in South Asian Affairs, x7-5415 Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division Subject: Pakistan’s Sindh Province This memorandum responds to your request for information on Pakistan’s Sindh province, including specific discussion of its Thatta and Badin districts. Content may appear in other CRS products. Please contact me if you need further assistance. Overview1 Sindh is one of Pakistan’s four provinces, accounting for roughly one-quarter of the country’s population in less than 18% of its land area. Its provincial capital, Karachi, is among the world’s largest megacities, and also the site of significant sectarian, ethnic, and political violence. Covering more than 54,000 square miles of southeastern Pakistan (about the size of Florida, see Figure 1), Sindh stretches from the Jacobabad district in the north to the vast Indus River delta wetlands abutting the Arabian Sea and India in the south, and from the thinly-populated Dadu district in the west to the Thar Desert and a militarized border with India to the east (see Figure 2). One-third of Pakistan’s 650-mile Arabian Sea coastline is in Sindh. The vast majority of Sindh’s residents live at or near the final few hundred miles of the Indus’s course. Official government population statistics continue to be based on the most recent national census in 1998, which put Sindh’s population at 30.4 million out of Pakistan’s then-total 132 million, with 52% living in rural areas.
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