Northwest India (pre-1947)

For the modern Indian region, see Northwest India.

For the broader region which includes Balochistan, Baltistan, and Pashtunistan, see Northwestern South Asia.

Northwest India was a historical region, geographically located on the north-western Indian subcontinent. It predominantly constitutes what are now parts of the present-day South Asian republics of India and Pakistan (specifically modern north-western India and eastern Pakistan) after the 1947 Partition of British India.^[1][2]

A view of Mohenjo-daro, an archaeological site in modern Sindh, Pakistan dating back to the Indus Valley Civilisation.

The region encompassed the modern Pakistan and the territory of the modern India approximately to the west of the 77th meridian east and north of the 24th parallel north.^[3]

History

See also: History of Pakistan

The Indus Valley Civilisation formed in the northwestern subcontinent over 4000 years ago, with climate change potentially having caused its later decline.^[4]

Northwest India was a hub of Buddhism in ancient times.^[5][6]

The Umayyad Caliphate conquered Sindh in the 8th century CE,^[7] marking the beginning of what was to become a major Islamic presence in the region.^[8]

See also

• Indus River, which the name "India" is derived from
• North-Western Provinces, a region in British India

References

1. Hayreh, Sohan Singh (2018). "Adventure in three worlds". Indian Journal of Ophthalmology. 66 (12): 1678. doi:10.4103/ijo.IJO_1842_18. ISSN 0301-4738. PMC 6256897. PMID 30451165.
2. "Revisiting the Impacts of the Green Revolution in India". ipg.vt.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-30.
3. Ramaswamy, C. (1987). Meteorological Aspects of Severe Floods in India, 1923-1979. Meteorological monograph: Hydrology. India Meteorological Department. p. 17. Retrieved 2024-04-07.
4. "Abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon in northwest India ~4100 yr ago". pubs.geoscienceworld.org. Retrieved 2023-11-30.
5. Verardi, Giovanni (2012). "Buddhism in North-western India and Eastern Afghanistan, Sixth to Ninth Century AD". ZINBUN. 43: 147–183. doi:10.14989/155685. ISSN 0084-5515.
6. Michon, Daniel (2015-08-12). Archaeology and Religion in Early Northwest India: History, Theory, Practice. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-32458-4.
7. Formichi, Chiara, ed. (2020), "Islam across the Oxus (Seventh to Seventeenth Centuries)", Islam and Asia: A History, New Approaches to Asian History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 10–41, doi:10.1017/9781316226803.004, ISBN 978-1-107-10612-3, S2CID 238121625, retrieved 2023-11-30
8. "Do you know how Islam spread in the Indian subcontinent?". EgyptToday. 2017-05-29. Retrieved 2023-11-30.