Natural topography and drainage

Geography of Pakistan · The land of Pakistan. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

Pakistan has three main kinds of land. In the north and west are mountains: the Karakoram, Himalaya and Hindu Kush in the north, and the Safed Koh and Sulaiman Range along the west. West of the Sulaiman Range is the dry Balochistan Plateau. In northern Punjab is the Potwar Plateau, with the Salt Range on its southern edge.

The east is the Indus Plain, a floodplain of flat, fertile alluvium laid down by the Indus and its tributaries.

Relief controls land use. Flat land with deep soil and canal water is farmed intensively and has many roads and railways. Steep slopes, deserts and high passes have few people and few routes.

Rules to remember

K2 (8,611 m) is in the Karakoram; Nanga Parbat is in the Himalaya; Tirich Mir is in the Hindu Kush.
The Jhelum, Ravi and Sutlej all join the Chenab, which then joins the Indus.
The Kabul River joins the Indus near Attock; the Hab and the Dasht are small rivers in the south-west that flow to the Arabian Sea.
Deserts: Thar (south-east Sindh), Thal (Punjab, between the Indus and the Jhelum), Kharan (western Balochistan).
A doab is the land between two rivers that meet.
A plateau is high, fairly level land; the Potwar is dissected, which means cut into gullies and ravines.
In mountains, roads follow valleys and passes, and farmers cut terraces into the slopes.

Common mistake

The Thal and the Thar are easy to confuse. The Thal is in Punjab between the Indus and the Jhelum; the Thar is in south-east Sindh next to India.

Worked example

A map shows many roads and railways in central Punjab but very few in western Balochistan. How does relief help to explain this?

Central Punjab is a flat plain, so roads and railways are cheap and easy to build.
The plain is farmed intensively and has many large cities, so there are many people and goods to carry.
Western Balochistan is a dry plateau with mountain ranges and desert, so routes need passes, tunnels and bridges and cost much more.
Few people live there, so there is little traffic to pay for new routes.

Answer: Flat, fertile, crowded land gives a dense network; rugged, dry, thinly peopled land gives a sparse one.

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