01-30-2011, 02:04 PM
![[Image: map-pakistan.gif]](http://www.wildlifeofpakistan.com/IntroductiontoPakistan/map-pakistan.gif)
Pakistan is situated between the latitudes 23 and 36 North and between the longitudes of 61 and 75 East. It has an area of 796,095 square kilometers (kms). India is on its eastern border, the Peoples Republic of China lies to the north east. Afghanistan is situated on its northwestern boundary line while Iran shares border with Pakistan in the southwest. In north only a 24 km long Wakhan border of Afghanistan separates it from the Tajikistan. Jammu and Kashm?r is a disputed territory located between Pakistan and India. Pakistan controls a portion of the territory as Azad (Free) Kashm?r and the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA), while India controls a portion as the state of Jammu and Kashm?r.
Pakistan extends some 1,700 kilometres northward to the origins of the Indus among the mountains of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Karakoram. Many of their peaks exceed 8,000 meters including K-2, at 8,611 meters, the second highest in the world. Pakistan has a coastline of about 1,046 kilometres
with 22,820 square kilometres of territorial waters and an Exclusive Economic Zone of about 196,600 square kilometres in the Arabian Sea.
The land mass of Pakistan originated in the continent of Gondwanaland which is thought to have broken off from Africa, drifted across the Indian Ocean, and joined mainland Asia some 50 million years ago. With the creation of a land-bridge between Gondwanaland and south-east Asia, Indo-Malayan life-forms are thought to have invaded the evolving sub-continent, and these now predominate in Pakistan east of the river Indus. The north and west of the country is dominated by Palaearctic forms. Some Ethiopian forms have become established in the south-western part. About 20 million years ago, the gradual drying and retreat of the Sea of Tethys created the Indus lowlands, and a violent upheaval 13 million years ago gave rise to the Himalayas. A series of Pleistocene ice-ages, the last ending just 10,000 years ago, gave rise to some unique floral and fauna associations.
