# Gulshan Town

Gulshan Town (Urdu: گلشن ٹاؤن) is a Karachi borough in the northeastern part of Karachi. Gulshan Town was formed in 2001 as part of the Local Government Ordinance 2001, and was subdivided into 11 union councils. The town system was disbanded in 2011, and Gulshan Town was reorganized as a subdivision of Karachi East District in 2015. The Karachi Towns were restored in early 2022. According to the 2023 Pakistani census, the population of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Subdivision is 973,314.

## History

In 2022, Karachi East District was divided into five towns namely Sohrab Goth Town, Safoora Town, Gulshan Town, Jinnah Town and Chanesar Town with 43 union councils and 172 wards respectively.

## Location

Gulshan Town is bordered by Gadap Town to the north, the Faisal and Malir Cantonments to the east, Jamshed Town to the southwest, and Gulberg and Liaquatabad to the west.

## Background

The federal government under Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup d'etat, introduced local government reforms in the year 2000, which eliminated the previous "third tier of government" (administrative divisions) and replaced it with the fourth tier (districts). The effect in Karachi was the dissolution of the former Karachi Division in 2001, and the merging of its five districts to form a new Karachi City-District with eighteen autonomous constituent towns including Gulshan Town. In 2011, the system was disbanded but remained in place for bureaucratic administration until 2015, when the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation system was reintroduced. In 2015, Gulshan Town was re-organized as a sub-division as part of Karachi East district.
Gulshan-e-Iqbal town was restored as a Town in January 2022, which includes union committees 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 & 28.
Commissioner of Karachi (Syed Darbar Ali Shah) envisioned setting up a new town Gulshan-e-Iqbal on 16 April 1966. It was originally Karachi Development Authority (scheme 24) which was renamed in the name of Pakistan's national poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Gulshan Town saw a lot of development after setting up of Civic Centre, Karachi and Karachi Expo Center.

## Demographics

* Urdu (60.55%)
* Sindhi (10.04%)
* Punjabi (8.84%)
* Saraiki (7.95%)
* Pashto (5.18%)
* Balochi (2.48%)
* Others (4.93%)
There are 973,314 people of which 589,350 spoke Urdu, 97,745 Sindhi, 86,116 Punjabi, 77,423 Saraiki, 50,465 Pashto, 24,172 Balochi, 13,421 Hindko, 2,217 Kashmiri, 2,023 Shina, 1,291 Mewati, 1,215 Balti, 777 Brahui & 27,099 others.

## Neighbourhoods

Gulshan Town is the location of the main University of Karachi campus, as well as the offices of the City District Government of Karachi and the Attorney General of Sindh province. There are also a few large parks which includes Aziz Bhatti Park, Askari Park, Aladin Park (now Bagh-e-Karachi) and Safari Park.
* Delhi Mercantile Society
* Essa Nagri
* Bahadurabad
* Hyderabad Colony
* Gulshan-e-Iqbal I
* Gulshan-e-Iqbal II
* Gulzar-e-Hijri
* Gulistan-e-Johar
* Abbas Town
* Kokan Cooperative Housing Society
* Jamali Colony
* Metroville Colony
* Pehlwan Goth
* P.I.B. Colony
* Safoora Goth
* Shanti Nagar
* Sachal Goth
* KESC Society

## Education

Gulshan-e-Iqbal area may be called as a university town having more than a dozen of higher education institutions. Few of the major institutions are as follows:
* University of Karachi
* NED University of Engineering and Technology
* Institute of Business Administration, Karachi
* SSUET
* Federal Urdu University
* UIT University
* Aga Khan University
* Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences
* Indus University
* Karachi School of Arts
* Iqra University
and several others