Bahawalpur

Bahawalpur sits in the southern Punjab province of Pakistan, at the northern edge of the Cholistan Desert and a few kilometres south of the Satluj river. Founded in 1748, it served as the capital of the princely state of the same name — one of the wealthiest semi-autonomous states under British colonial rule — until its merger with Pakistan in 1954. With roughly 762,000 residents, it is today Pakistan's eleventh-largest city and the dominant regional centre of southern Punjab.