Peshawar District

Peshawar District (پېښور ولسوالۍ, , ) is a district in the Peshawar Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province ofPakistan. It is located about 160 km west of the Pakistan's capital Islamabad. The district headquarter is the city of Peshawar, which is also the capital of Khyber Paktunkhwa. This district and the city has seen the rise and fall of many civilizations. It was once the center of Gandhara and has subsequently been ruled by Persians, Greeks, Buddhists, Kushans, Afghans, Mughals, Marathas, Sikhs and the British. The original district of Peshawar was a district of the North-West Frontier Province of British India. After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the old Peshawar District became Peshawar Division comprising the current districts of Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera. In July 1988, the former Charsadda tehsil was separated and attained the status of a separate district. In 1990, the Nowshera tehsil also was upgraded to the status of a district. Under the latest revision of Pakistan's administrative structure, promulgated in 2001, Peshawar was also given the status of a city district. At the time of the 2017 census, the district had 499,268 households and a population of 4,331,959. The population of the district over the years is shown in the table below. Peshawar district had a sex ratio of 943 females per 1000 males and a literacy rate of 55.01% - 68.78% for males and 40.47% for females. 1,969,823 (45.47%) lived in urban areas, mainly Peshawar city. 29.90% of the population were under 10 years of age. At the time of the 2017, in present-day Peshawar district 90.32% of the population spoke Pashto, 5.25% Hindko, 1.93% Urdu and 1.07% Punjabi as their first language. Due to the settlement of Afghan refugees and language shift Pashto has gained ground at the expense of Hindko. Muslims make up the majority in Peshawar. Peshawar once had significant minorities of Hindus and Sikhs living in the small towns and Peshawar city, but most fled during Partition. Only 1,800 Hindus and 2,500 Sikhs remain in the district.