Balochistan is a province of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the north-east, Punjab to the east and Sindh to the south-east; shares international borders with Iran to the west and Afghanistan to the north; and is bound by the Arabian Sea to the south. Balochistan is an extensive plateau of rough terrain divided into basins by ranges of sufficient heights and ruggedness. It has the world's largest deep sea port, the Port of Gwadar lying in the Arabian Sea.
Makran, also mentioned in some sources as Mecran and Mokrān, is the southern coastal region of Balochistan. It is a semi-desert coastal strip in the Balochistan province in Pakistan and in Iran, along the coast of the Gulf of Oman. It extends westwards, from the Sonmiani Bay to the northwest of Karachi in the east, to the fringes of the region of Bashkardia/Bāšgerd in the southern part of the Sistan and Baluchestan province of modern Iran. Makrān is thus bisected by the modern political boundary between Pakistan and Iran.
The Geography of Pakistan encompasses a wide variety of landscapes varying from plains to deserts, forests, and plateaus ranging from the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean in the south to the mountains of the Karakoram, Hindukush, Himalayas ranges in the north. Pakistan geologically overlaps both with the Indian and the Eurasian tectonic plates where its Sindh and Punjab provinces lie on the north-western corner of the Indian plate while Balochistan and most of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lie within the Eurasian plate which mainly comprises the Iranian Plateau.
The Baloch or Baluch are a nomadic, pastoral, ethnic group which speaks the Western Iranic Balochi language and is native to the Balochistan region of South and Western Asia, encompassing the countries of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. There are also Baloch diaspora communities in neighbouring regions, including in Central Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula.
Sistan and Baluchestan province is the second largest of the 31 Provinces of Iran, after Kerman Province, with an area of 180,726 km2. Its capital is the city of Zahedan. The province is in the southeast of the country, bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Chaghi District, also known as Chaghi District, is the largest district of Pakistan by area, located in the northwestern corner of the Balochistan province of Pakistan. District shares the border with two countries: Afghanistan and Iran.
Chābahār ; is a city in the Central District of Chabahar County, Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. It is a free port situated on the coast of the Gulf of Oman, and is Iran's southernmost city. The sister port city of Gwadar in Balochistan, Pakistan, is located about 170 kilometres (110 mi) to the east of Chabahar.
The history of Balochistan refers to the history of the Balochistan region of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Vague allusions to the region were found in Greek historical records of around 650 BCE. Prehistoric Balochistan dates to the Paleolithic.
Pishin or Pshin is a city that serves as the administrative headquarter of the Pishin District of Pakistan's Balochistan province. Pishin is considered part of the Pashtun belt of Balochistan, and is the largest district of Pashtun tribes.
The Chief Commissioner's Province of British Baluchistan was a province of British India established in 1876. Upon the creation of Pakistan it acceded to the newly formed state. It was part of the Baluchistan Agency. It was dissolved to form a united province of West Pakistan in 1955 upon the creation of One Unit Scheme.
The Khanate of Kalat was a Brahui Khanate that originated in the modern-day Kalat region of Pakistan. Formed in 1666 due to the threat of Mughal expansion in the region, it controlled the wider Balochistan at its greatest extent in the mid-18th century, extending from Kerman in the west to Sindh in the east and from Helmand River in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.
The Insurgency in Balochistan is an insurgency or revolt by Baloch separatist insurgents and various Islamist militant groups against the governments of Pakistan and Iran in the Balochistan region, which covers the Pakistani province of Balochistan, Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, and Balochistan of southern Afghanistan. Rich in natural resources, this is the largest, least populated and least developed province in Pakistan and Iran, and armed groups demand greater control of the province's natural resources and political autonomy. Baloch separatists have attacked civilians from other ethnicities throughout the province. In the 2010s, attacks against the Shia community by sectarian groups—though not always directly related to the political struggle—have risen, contributing to tensions in Balochistan. In Pakistan, the ethnic separatist insurgency is low-scale but ongoing mainly in southern Balochistan, as well as sectarian and religiously motivated militancy concentrated mainly in northern and central Balochistan.
Balochistan, also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region of desert and mountains is primarily populated by ethnic Baloch people.
Balochistan or Afghan Baluchistan is an arid, mountainous region that includes part of southern and southwestern Afghanistan. It extends into southeastern Iran and western Pakistan and is named after the Baloch people.
The Iran–Pakistan border, is the international boundary that separates Iran and Pakistan. It demarcates the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan from the Pakistani province of Balochistan, and spans 909 kilometres in length.
The 1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan was an armed infiltration carried out by Pakistan in February 1973 at the embassy of Ba'athist Iraq in Islamabad. The raid, carried out by the Punjab Rangers and the Islamabad Police, was launched after the interception of information by Pakistani intelligence that uncovered large-scale covert Iraqi involvement in the supply of weapons and funds to militants waging an insurgency against Iran and Pakistan in the Balochistan region situated between the two countries. Following the embassy raid, an abundance of funds and Soviet armaments from Iraq that were meant for Baloch insurgents were seized by Pakistani forces, and the Iraqi ambassador to Pakistan as well as the embassy's staff were immediately expelled from Pakistan and declared personae non gratae. Pakistan's findings in the embassy raid heightened tensions between Iran and Iraq, which, in 1974, escalated into armed clashes over the Shatt al-Arab, a river that was formerly subject to a territorial dispute between the two nations that later served as one of the key factors that propelled them into a full-scale and protracted war in 1980 following the Iranian Revolution. The event led to a severe deterioration in Iraq–Pakistan relations and contributed to Pakistan's heavy backing of Iran during the latter's eight-year-long war with Iraq.
Khash is a city in the Central District of Khash County, Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district.
Baloch nationalism is an ideology that asserts that the Baloch people, an Iranic ethnic group native to Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, form a distinct nation. The origins of modern Baloch nationalism coupled with the insurgency in Balochistan involving various militant organizations, go back to the period of the partition of British India and subsequent independence of Pakistan, when Kalat, the largest Baloch princely state, acceded to the Dominion of Pakistan.
The Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency is an ongoing low-intensity asymmetric conflict in Sistan and Baluchestan Province between Iran and several Baloch Sunni militant organizations designated as terrorist organizations by the Iranian government. It began in 2004 and is part of the wider Balochistan conflict.
