35 Facts About Sialkot

The boundaries of Sialkot are joined with Jammu in the north east, the districts of Narowal in the south east, Gujranwala in south west and Gujrat in north west.

Sialkot is believed to be the successor of ancient Sagala, the capital of the Madra kingdom razed by Alexander the Great in 326 BCE, and then made capital of the Indo-Greek kingdom by Menander I in the 2nd century BCE—a time during which the city greatly prospered as a major centre for trade and Buddhist thought.

Sialkot continued to be a major political centre, until it was eclipsed by Lahore around the turn of the first millennium.

Sialkot is wealthy relative to other cities in South Asia, with an estimated 2021 per capita income of $18,500.

Sialkot is home to the Sialkot International Airport; Pakistan's first privately owned public airport.

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Sialkot has a GDP of $13 Billions, which make it 4th largest in Pakistan.

Sialkot is likely the capital of the Madra Kingdom Sagala, Sakala, or Sangala mentioned in the Mahabharata, a Sanskrit epic of ancient India, as occupying a similar area as Greek accounts of Sagala.

Anabasis of Alexander, written by the Roman-Greek historian Arrian, recorded that Alexander the Great captured ancient Sialkot, recorded as Sagala, from the Cathaeans, who had entrenched themselves there.

Ancient Sialkot was recorded by Ptolemy in his 1st century CE work, Geography, in which he refers to the city as Euthymedia.

Sialkot itself was captured, and the city was made capital of the Alchon Huns around 515, during the reign of Toramana.

Around the year 1000, Sialkot began to decline in importance as the nearby city of Lahore rose to prominence.

Sialkot became a part of the medieval Sultanate of Delhi after Muhammad Ghauri conquered Punjab in 1185.

Sialkot extensively repaired the Sialkot Fort around the time of his conquest of Punjab, and left the region in charge of Hussain Churmali while he returned to Ghazni.

Sialkot was then quickly laid siege to by Khokhar tribesmen, and Khusrau Malik, the last Ghaznavid sultan, though he was defeated during Ghauri's return to Punjab in 1186.

Sialkot's population continued to grow in the 1400s under the rule of Sultan Bahlul Lodi, who had granted custodianship of the city to Jammu's Raja Biram Dev, after he helped Lodhi defeat the Khokhars.

Sialkot was sacked during the Lodhi period by Malik Tazi Bhat of Kashmir, who attacked Sialkot after the governor of Punjab, Tatar Khan, had left the city undefended during one of his military campaigns.

Sialkot was captured by armies of the Babur in 1520, when the Mughal commander Usman Ghani Raza advanced towards Delhi during the initial conquest of Babur.

Sialkot is said to have met Hamza Ghaus, a prominent Sufi mystic based in Sialkot, at a site now commemorated by the city's Gurdwara Beri Sahib.

Paper-makers from Kashmir migrated to the city during the Akbar period, and Sialkot later became renowned as the source of the prized Mughal Hariri paper – known for its brilliant whiteness and strength.

Under Aurangzeb's reign, Sialkot became known as a great centre of Islamic thought and scholarship, and attracted scholars because of the widespread availability of paper in the city.

Sialkot was crept upon by Ranjit Deo of Jammu, who pledged nominal allegiance to the Mughal crown in Delhi.

In 1877, the Sialkot poet Allama Iqbal, who is credited for inspiring the Pakistan Movement, was born into a Kashmiri family that had converted to Islam from Hinduism in the early 1400s.

Sialkot remained peaceful for several months while communal riots had erupted in Lahore, Amritsar, Ludhiana, and Rawalpindi.

Sialkot's core is composed of the densely populated old city, while north of the city lies the vast colonial era Sialkot Cantonment – characterised by wide streets and large lawns.

Sialkot is a wealthy city relative to the rest of Pakistan, with a GDP of $13 Billions and a per capita income in 2021 estimated at $18500.

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Sialkot has been noted by Britain's The Economist magazine as a "world-class manufacturing hub" with strong export industries.

Sialkot is the only city in Pakistan to have its very own commercial airline, Airsial.

Clustering of sports goods industrial units has allowed for firms in Sialkot to become highly specialised, and to benefit from joint action and external economies.

Sialkot is the world's largest centre of surgical instrument manufacturing.

Sialkot was first noted to be a centre of metalwork in the 1890s, and the city's association with surgical instruments came from the need to repair, and subsequently manufacture, surgical instruments for the nearby Mission hospital.

Sialkot first became a centre for sporting goods manufacturing during the colonial era.

Sialkot now produces a wide array of sporting goods, including footballs and hockey sticks, cricket gear, gloves that are used in international games comprising the Olympics and World Cups.

Sialkot has a productive relationship between the civic administration and the city's entrepreneurs, that dates to the colonial era.

Sialkot's infrastructure was paid for by local taxes on industry, and the city was one of the few in British India to have its own electric utility company.

In 1966, the Government of Pakistan awarded a special flag, the Hilal-i-istaqlal to Sialkot for showing severe resistance to the enemy during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 as these cities were targets of the Indian aggression.