Ziarat district: juniper forests and the summer capital of Balochistan

Introduction and location

Ziarat is a small district in the northern hill ranges of Balochistan, east of Quetta. It is known for its cool climate and old juniper forests. Because of this cold climate, the British made it the summer headquarters of the Baluchistan Agency. Today it is still counted among the best-known tourist spots of the province.

According to the 2023 census of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Ziarat district covers 3,301 square kilometres and has a population of 189,535. This includes 96,172 men, 93,355 women and 8 transgender persons. Population density is about 57 persons per square kilometre, and nearly 26 per cent of people live in urban areas. The 2017 census recorded the district’s population at 160,095, which means an average annual growth of 2.86 per cent over six years. A household has 8.2 members on average.

Administratively, the district is divided into two sub-divisions. Ziarat sub-division covers 1,489 square kilometres and has a population of 78,912. Sanjawi sub-division covers 1,812 square kilometres and has a population of 110,623. Most of the district’s people thus live in Sanjawi, which also has the higher share of urban population: about 41 per cent in Sanjawi against only about 5 per cent in Ziarat sub-division. The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer lists Sanjawi as a tahsil of Loralai district, whose dispensary was moved to Ziarat in summer.

In July 2026, the Balochistan government issued a notification on the new division of the province’s divisions and districts. Its details, drawn from newspaper reports, are recorded on our reference page. Which division Ziarat now belongs to is yet to be confirmed from the text of the notification. This page follows the district as defined in the 2023 census.

History

In British times, the Ziarat area was part of Shahrig tahsil of Sibi district. According to the Sibi volume of the Baluchistan District Gazetteer, published in 1907, the local name of the place was “Gwashki” or “Koshki”. In 1886 it was renamed “Ziarat” after the nearby shrine of Mian Abdul Hakim. Mian Abdul Hakim is also known as “Kharwari Baba” or “Kharwari Nika”, and the gazetteer’s list of shrines records his shrine near Goshki under that name.

The gazetteer states that British officers first visited the place in 1883 and chose it as a sanitarium. The Residency was built here in 1890-91. In 1895, about 81 acres of land and water were bought from the Sarangzai tribe for Rs14,000, and in 1898-99 a piped water supply was arranged at a cost of Rs38,000. A summer camp for European troops stationed in Quetta was set up here in 1885. It was later closed and re-established in 1903.

Ziarat was declared the “provincial summer headquarters” of the Baluchistan Agency, and the Political Agent of Sibi stayed here from May to October. According to the gazetteer, the place was almost deserted in winter because of severe cold and snowfall. The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer repeats the same details and says the Residency at Ziarat cost about half a lakh of rupees.

After the creation of Pakistan, Ziarat’s greatest claim to fame has been its link with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ Provincial Census Report 2023 describes the Quaid-e-Azam Residency, Ziarat, as the wooden house where the founder of Pakistan spent the days of his illness, and counts it among the most important tourist sites in Pakistan.

People and languages

According to the mother tongue table of the 2023 census, Ziarat is almost entirely a Pashto-speaking district. Of 189,535 residents, 187,360, or about 99 per cent, have Pashto as their mother tongue. There are 851 Balochi speakers, 558 Saraiki speakers and 322 Punjabi speakers. The other languages are spoken by even fewer people.

According to the 1907 gazetteer, the Dumar, Panezai and Sarangzai sections of the Kakar tribe lived in this hilly area, which locals called “Khurasan”. The gazetteer also writes that in the Ziarat hills, where juniper trees grow, house roofs were covered with juniper bark and the houses looked like English village cottages. Locals ground juniper berries to make a kind of porridge.

On education, the district’s position is mixed. According to the provincial census report, Ziarat is among six districts where the literacy rate is between 40 and 45 per cent, which is better than in many districts of the province. The same report, however, puts the share of out-of-school children here between 60 and 70 per cent.

Economy

Ziarat’s economy depends on forests, livestock, farming and tourism. According to the Sibi gazetteer, the protected juniper forests in Sibi district then covered about 68 square miles, and all of them except Torshor in Zarghun lay around Ziarat. They included the forests of Shahidan, Zarghat, Gohar, Kach Mangi, Sarghand and Batsargi, which were declared protected in various years between 1890 and 1904. The gazetteer says juniper was also found over about 50 square miles around Ziarat outside these reserves.

On juniper, the gazetteer writes that the tree generally grows on limestone soil at heights between 6,500 and 8,500 feet. Its wood is light but withstands moisture remarkably well, which is why water channels and house roofs were made from it. The gazetteer warned even then that, because of the lack of moisture, large-scale artificial propagation of juniper was not possible, and that natural regeneration in closed areas was the only hope of improvement.

Minor forest produce has also been a source of income for local people. According to the gazetteer, cumin grew in the Zarghun hills and in the valleys of Kach, Mangi and Sangan, and in a good year about 500 maunds of cumin were collected from Sibi district. The Imperial Gazetteer also describes the Ziarat hills as famous for cumin and many kinds of grass.

Coal is the important mineral. According to the Provincial Census Report 2023, the coal reserves of Degari, Sanjdi, Mach, Pir Ismail, Ziarat, Duki and Chamalang together amount to 217 million tonnes. The report does not give a separate figure for Ziarat alone.

Places of interest

Quaid-e-Azam Residency: According to the provincial census report, this is the wooden house where the Quaid-e-Azam spent the days of his illness, and it is one of the country’s prominent tourist sites.

Juniper forests: The provincial report says natural forests are very few in Balochistan, and that Ziarat, Zarghun and Harboi are among the few exceptions. The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer describes the hill slopes of Ziarat as covered with juniper, with “many beautiful walks in the wooded ravines”, and says large ravines and gorges are a feature of the scenery.

Shrine of Mian Abdul Hakim: This is the shrine after which the place was named Ziarat in 1886.

Kowas: According to the gazetteer, this old settlement on the road from Kach railway station to Ziarat was once a halt on the caravan route between India and Persia.