Nowshera City

 History of Nowshera

Nowshera is the capital of Nowshera district of KPK. It is the 9th large city of Pakistan and 7^th largest city of KPK. This city was developed during the Afghan Duran Empire. This city was settled by Emperor Akbar between 1581 to 1586. Inhabited during the Mughal period, the city was considered an important district of the Peshawar division for administrative purposes. But later on, the city itself was designated a district. It is located on the right bank of the Kabul River in the east of Peshawar. Moreover, the old population of Nowshera still exists on the left bank of the Kabul River. Nowshera is also known as the gateway of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The name Nowshera reads as a local Urdu name for Nowshera, which is a large village located close to the Peshawar city. Located in northern Pakistan, Nowshera is an urban city, in the southern Punjab province that has a good status as an international, commercial and cultural city. 

There is also the history of the GT road of Nowshera. The Mughals and Afghans attacked KPK from the same path. This is the Highway that the great Pakhtun ruler, Sher Shah Suri built and equipped with facilities during the 16th century.

Naming the City

The word Nowshera means “A New City''. Nowshera is also known as the city of Cantonments. Nowshera Cantt, Risalpur Cantt, and many other localities of the Pakistan Army are present in Nowshera city.

Population

According to the census of 2017, the total population of Nowshera is 15, 18, 540. 58% of this population belongs to the Khattak tribe. Apart from Muslims, Hindus and Christians also live in the city. There are also places of worship for people of all faiths. 

Nowshera (the new city) is a beautiful garden that has been soaked in the blood of Sayed Ahmed Shaheed and Shah Ismail Shaheed. In this battle of 1822, while defending this city, they met the real Creator.

Culture

The most known festival celebrated in Nowshera is Charaghan. This festival is celebrated by the owner of a Sufi saint, Hazrat Kaka Sahib. This is the story from the times when he, despite being very old, worked hard to light the candles of Islam. His son places fire on the way to lighten his paths during dark nights. People continued this activity after his death and even after the generation of electricity and celebrated this activity as a festival to remember Hazrat Kaka Sahib.

Pashto is the most spoken language in Nowshera city. Except Pashto, there are also other languages spoken in the city, which may include Hindko, Urdu and the Majhi and Jandali accents of Punjabi, which are spoken in the areas like Akora and Kalan.

The people of Nowshera are very interested in sports. They spend their time in many healthy activities/ sports such as hockey, squash, fencing, volleyball, tennis, cricket, football, athletics, and basket-ball, swimming and riding. There is also a Gulf Club located in PAF Academy, Risalpur.

The women of Nowshera cultural dressing is traditional afghan clothing, with ancient silver jewelry. It is the same as the whole KPK. While the men wear white salwar kameez with their traditional caps.

Travel

Nowshera has good roads for example Roads Lahore-Islamabad Road (1965), Road 726 (Khanewal) and Islamabad-Lahore Road (2011). Nowshera has a wide range of historical monuments such as Indus Qutub’ and Indus Qutubi Samawat Sharif tombs. Nowshera town is located on the outskirts of Lahore and is close to the main town Lahore.

Besides the above-mentioned roads there are many other highways present in Nowshera city. These include N-5 National Highway, N-45 National highway, M1 Motorway and Swat Motorway.