page_title: Punjab
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Punjab / Political geography / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Punjab Province in 1909.
context_page_description: Punjab is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of eastern Pakistan and northern India. The boundaries of the region are ill-defined and focus on historical accounts.
  The geographical definition of the term "Punjab" has changed over time. In the 16th century Mughal Empire it referred to a relatively smaller area between the Indus and the Sutlej rivers. In British India, until the Partition of India in 1947, the Punjab Province encompassed the present-day Indian states and union territories of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Delhi and the Pakistani regions of Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory. It bordered the Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa regions to the west, Kashmir to the north, the Hindi Belt to the east, and Rajasthan and Sindh to the south.
  The people of the Punjab today are called Punjabis, and their principal language is Punjabi. The main religion of the Pakistani Punjab region is Islam. The two main religions of the Indian Punjab region are Sikhism and Hinduism.
context_section_description: The 19th century definition of the Punjab region focuses on the collapse of the Sikh Empire and the creation of the British Punjab province between 1846 and 1849. According to this definition, the Punjab region incorporates, in today's Pakistan, Azad Kashmir including Bhimber and Mirpur and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (especially Peshawar, known in the Punjab region as Pishore). In India, the wider definition includes parts of Delhi and Jammu Division.
  Using the older definition, the Punjab region covers a large territory and can be divided into five natural areas:
  the eastern mountainous region including Jammu Division and Azad Kashmir;
  the trans-Indus region including Peshawar;
  the central plain with its five rivers;
  the north-western region, separated from the central plain by the Salt Range between the Jhelum and the Indus rivers;
  the semi-desert to the south of the Sutlej river.
  The formation of the Himalayan Range of mountains to the east and north-east of the Punjab is the result of a collision between the north-moving Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The plates are still moving together, and the Himalayas are rising by about 5 millimetres (0.2 in) per year.
  The upper regions are snow-covered the whole year. Lower ranges of hills run parallel to the mountains. The Lower Himalayan Range runs from north of Rawalpindi through Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and further south. The mountains are relatively young, and are eroding rapidly. The Indus and the five rivers of the Punjab have their sources in the mountain range and carry loam, minerals and silt down to the rich alluvial plains, which consequently are very fertile.
caption: Punjab Province (British India), 1909
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