Balochistan (region)

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This article is about the wider Balochistan region. For other uses of the name, see Balochistan.

Major ethnic groups in Pakistan and surrounding areas, in 1980. The Baloch are shown in pink.

Balochistan or Baluchistan is an arid region located in the Iranian Plateau in Southwest Asia and South Asia, between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The area is named after the numerous Baloch (or Baluch, Balouch, Balooch, Balush, Balosh, Baloosh, Baloush) tribes, an Iranian people, who moved into the area from the west around 1000 A.D. All natives are considered Balochi even if they do not speak Balochi; Pashto, Persian, and Brahui languages are also spoken in the region. The southern part of Balochistan is known as Makran.

[edit] Landscape

Balochistan's landscape is composed of barren, rugged mountains and fertile land. During the summer, some regions of Balochistan are the hottest in Pakistan. Most of the land is barren, and it is generally sparsely populated. In the south - the Makran - lies the desert through which Alexander the Great passed with great difficulty.

[edit] History

Main article: History of Balochistan

The original inhabitants of ancient Balochistan, and other regions of Pakistan, were the aborigine tribes speaking languages related to Munda languages. The Dravidians are thought to have migrated from the Iranian plateau and settled in Balochistan and the Indus valley around 4000 BCE. The Brahui living in Balochistan still speak a Dravidian language, thought to be a remnant from this earlier susbtrate. The Indo-European Indo-Aryan peoples migrated from what is now Afghanistan and surrounding areas starting around 2000 BCE, and settled in all regions of Pakistan. Later, these Aryan groups would become the Pakhtuns and the various Dardic and other tribes that currently populate the region. Before the arrival of the Baloch, the region was populated by Pashtuns and Brahuis.^{[citation needed]} The Pashtuns are now concentrated in Sibi, Bolan, Quetta, Pishin, Killa Abdullah, Killa Saifullah, Loralai, Zhob, Ziarat and Harnai. Many Brahuis live in Kalat. Nearly all of Balochistan, and ancient Pakistan, was part by the Persian Achaemenid dynasty that ruled the area for over two hundred years beginning in 540 BCE. In 326 BCE, Alexander the Great defeated the Hindu king Puru (Porus, Paurava) at the Hydaspes near Jhelum and annexed the area to his Hellenistic empire. After Alexander's death and brief Seleucid control, Balochistan remained part of the Persian empire. During the Arab conquest of the Persian empire in the 8th century, Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world and many settled in Balochistan and its tributory state until the rise of the Mughals. Numerous Baloch tribes, an Iranian people, moved into the area from the west in the 11th century to escape the Seljuk Turks. Western Balochistan was conquered by Iran in the 19th century, and its boundary was fixed in 1872. Omani influenced waned in the east and Oman's last possession, Gwadar, was bought by Pakistan in 1958. In 1998 Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.