Multan

The origin of Multan's name is unclear. An ancient known name of the city was Malli-istan; Malli was the name of a tribe that inhabited the region and city. The city name may have been derived from the deity of the ancient Multan Sun Temple. Some have suggested the name derives from the Old Persian word mulastāna, 'frontier land', while others have ascribed its origin to the Sanskrit word mūlasthāna.

The region around Multan is home to several archaeological sites dating to the early Harappan period of the Indus Valley Civilisation between 3000 BCE to 2800 BCE. According to the Hindu religious texts, Multan was founded by the sage Kashyapa. These texts also assert that Multan was the capital of the Trigarta Kingdom ruled by the Katoch dynasty during the Kurukshetra War that is central to the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata. The city was visited by Greek admiral Skylax, who passed through the area in 515 BCE. The city was also mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in 400 BCE. Multan is believed to have been the Malli capital that was conquered by Alexander the Great in 326 BCE as part of the Mallian Campaign. The Mallian people, together with nearby tribes, gathered an army of 90,000 personnel to fight against an army of 50,000 Greeks. …

Multan is located in Punjab, and covers an area of 560 square kilometres (220 sq mi). The nearest important cities are Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur. Multan is located near few rivers of central Pakistan. The Sutlej River separates it from Bahawalpur and the Chenab River from Muzaffargarh. The area around the city is a flat, alluvial plain surrounded by orchards and deserts that is also used for mango farms. Multan is located near the Sulaiman Mountain Range which is the extension of the southern Hindu Kush of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The most well-known peak of the Sulaiman mountains is the twin-peaked Takht-e-Sulaiman or "Throne of Prophet Solomon" at 3,487 metres (11,440 ft). Multan features a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) with extremely hot summers and mild winters. The normal annual precipitation measures around 200 millimetres (7.9 in). …

Multan is connected to operational motorways M4 on northside connecting to Faisalabad and M5 on south side connecting Sukkar. M4 is further connected to M3 connecting Lahore and M2 connecting Islamabad and Peshawar to Multan. While M5 will be connecting to Karachi via Karachi-Lahore Motorway in future. Multan is situated along the under-construction 6-lane Karachi–Lahore Motorway (M3) connecting Southern and northern Pakistan that is being built as part of the $54 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Currently, Lahore to Multan travel time is 4 hours on motorway M3 and M4. The 6-lane, 392-kilometre long M-5 section of the motorway is built between Sukkur and Multan at a cost $2.89 billion. The M-5 is open since 2019. It is connecting Multan to Sukkar and will connect to Karachi when Sukkar-Karachi Motorway will be opened. …

Multan city had a population of 1,078,245 in the 1998 census. In 2017 census, Multan's population jumped to 1.827 million. Multan had a sex ratio of 950 females per 1000 males and a literacy rate of 74.69%: 77.50% for males and 71.74% for females. 440,112 (24.09%) were under 10 years of age. The figure increased to 2.215 million in the 2023 Pakistani census. Islam is the predominant religion, with 98.63% of the population, with Christians making up 1.26%. 1598 people are Hindu and 78 are Sikh.