Geography
ਭੂਗੋਲGeography
Five rivers, two nations, and countless renamings — the land of Punjab read through its waters, its regions, and the many names its places have carried.
What this section covers
A land named for its water
The very word Punjab is a piece of geography: ਪੰਜ panj, five, and ਆਬ āb, water — the Land of Five Rivers. The shape of that river country has decided where cities rose, which fields were fertile, and which routes armies took. To understand Punjab, you begin with its map.
This section sets historical and modern place names side by side — because so many peoples have named this land that a single river or city can answer to several names at once. Where an identification is debated, we flag it rather than smoothing it over.
In this section
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More geography — the old and new names of towns across both Punjabs, and the making of the 1947 boundary — is in preparation and will be linked here as it is published.
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