Karachi | Pakistan

This black and white postcard shows a donkey cart in Karachi (Urdu: کراچی‎; Sindhi: ڪراچي‎; ALA-LC: Karācī) - the capital of the province of Sindh - is the largest and most populous city in Pakistan, as well as the 2nd most populous city in the world. 

 

Though the surroundings of Karachi have been inhabited for millennia, the city itself was founded as a village named Kolachi which was established as a fortified settlement in 1729. The new settlement is said to have been named in honour of Mai Kolachi, whose son is said to have slayed a man-eating crocodile in the village after his elder brothers had already been killed by it. The city's inhabitants are referred to by the demonym Karachiite in English, and Karāchīwālā in Urdu.

The settlement increased in importance drastically with the arrival of British colonialists, who not only embarked on major works to transform the city into a major seaport, but also connected it with their extensive railway network. By the time of the Partition of India, the city was the largest in Sindh with an estimated population of 400,000. Immediately following the independence of Pakistan, the city's population increased dramatically with the arrival of thousands of Muslim immigrants from India, with Karachi remaining the primary destination of Indian Muslim migrants throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Known as the "City of Lights" in the 1960s and 1970s for its vibrant nightlife, Karachi was beset by sharp ethnic, sectarian, and political conflict in the 1980s with the arrival of weaponry during the Soviet-Afghan war.

The card was posted on 16 March 1955 from Karachi.